Lore - Episode 40: Everything Floats

Episode Date: August 8, 2016

The older the city, the more stories there seem to be. Some places are home to tragedy, while others have played host to disaster or war. Few cities have it all, though, and judging by the pain those stories often reveal, that might be a good thing. To explore this episode on Apple Maps, click here. ———————————————— Lore Resources:  Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now   

Some tragedies take no effort at all to happen. One moment, life is perfect and normal, and everything we expect it to be, and then it changes in an instant. No warning, no chance to avoid it, it just happens. Natural disaster is one of those agents of tragedy that seems to sneak up on us and bring ruin into our lives. Fire, blood, tropical storms, just watching the news each night can give us a glimpse into yet one more episode of pain and suffering that no one saw coming.

Our tragedies, though, only exist because we have ushered them into our world, that we have sometimes been humanity as a collective and sometimes just one broken individual. Genocide or patricide, school shootings or terrorism, regardless of the source, these are tragedies that couldn't have existed without human involvement. It doesn't make them any less painful, mind you, sometimes that even makes them worse. These moments of tragedy are, thankfully, very spread out. We have a chance to breathe and move on, time to recoup. But give a city enough time, and those tragedies can start to pile up.

The older the place, the deeper the pain. A murder here, a disaster there, throw in a war or two for good measure, and soon, its entire history can feel like one long nightmare. Nowhere is that more true than in the city that most would call the Big Easy. Underneath its eclectic architectural mix of old Creole, French, Spanish, Victorian, and even Greek revival, amidst the parties and lights and music that all seem to pulse through the streets like blood, there's something darker. Because there's one thing that's hard for anyone to deny.

If it was tragic, painful, or eerie, it probably happened in New Orleans. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is Lore. It's safe to say that New Orleans is one of those cities that just about everyone has an impression of, whether correct or incorrect. It's a cultural icon, and a showcase of just how textured and diverse America's history truly is. We can blame much of that on the age of the city. The city, which will celebrate its tricentennial in just two years, was founded by the French

Mississippi Company in 1718. Other than the early settlements of New England, many of whom can claim incorporation in the early to mid-1600s, there are few places in the U.S. that are as old as New Orleans. In that age, it has brought the city more than its fair share of pain and tragedy. It was land that had once been occupied by the local Chittamasha tribe of Native Americans, and the Europeans, of course, took it from them. On the outset, it was seen by everyone as a valuable territory. Sitting at the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River, it acted like a doorway into the heart

of the continent, and for nearly 50 years, the French controlled that gate. When the French and Indian War came to a close in 1763, a treaty was signed between Great Britain, France, and Spain. One outcome of that document was that New Orleans fell under partial control of Spain, who held onto the city until the French reclaimed it in 1800. Three years later, Napoleon sold it to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. The War of 1812 brought the first major dose of tragedy to New Orleans. By 1815, the British had already burned the White House, the Capitol Building, and much

of Washington, D.C. In the South, though, they had their eyes set on New Orleans, that doorway to the heart of America. It was Andrew Jackson, future President of the United States, who was charged with defending the city as over 11,000 British troops marched toward it. They found help in one of the most unlikely places, two brothers known across the city as pirate outlaws. Jean and Pierre Lafite were smugglers who operated out of their blacksmith shop in New Orleans. In Star Wars terms, Jean was the Han Solo of the pair, the daring sailor and smuggler

of illegal goods. Pierre, in contrast, was Lando Calrissian, managing the business and acting as the public face of the operation. But after American naval vessels captured their offshore hideout in the fall of 1814, the Lafite brothers found themselves in legal hot water. They found salvation, though, in a deal with Andrew Jackson. In return for gathering troops and supplies for the approaching battle, things like sorely needed gunpowder and flint, Jackson promised to pardon the brothers and turn them into

heroes. The brothers delivered the supplies, the Americans won the battle, and Jackson made good on his word, although he had to become president to do so. Today Lafite's blacksmith shop is a bar in Bourbon Street and one of the oldest buildings in the French Quarter. And with a past as daring and dangerous as Lafite's, it's no wonder that stories of ghosts still echo throughout the establishment. The most common sightings speak of a figure who sits at the bar near the fireplace, dressed

in the attire of a late 18th century sailor. The ghosts aren't unique to old bars, though. Just outside the borders of the French Quarter sits the historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Founded in 1789, it's the oldest and most iconic cemetery in the city. In some ways, it has an appearance and atmosphere similar to Highgate Cemetery in London. It's a maze of small, above-ground vaults, many plain hosts to entire families. It's crowded, and old, and feels more than a little bit creepy. But it's not what's inside the tombs that gets talked about the most.

Visitors to the cemetery have frequently encountered mysterious figures, ghosts who apparently haunt the narrow spaces between the tombs. One common sighting is a man known as Henry Vignas. He said to have been a young sailor who was scammed out of his family tomb by a dishonest landlady. When he died, his body was buried in an unmarked popper's grave, and because of that, he still wanders the cemetery today, searching. Multiple visitors have claimed to see him approach, and after asking where the Vignas

tomb is, he said to turn around and vanish from sight. Another frequent sighting is the ghost of a young man known only as Alphonse. Witnesses claim that they've seen him floating toward them, and asked for help finding his home. Others say they've seen him gathering flowers from random graves before walking off with them. Maybe he's lonely, or perhaps he's just looking for a little beauty in such a somber place. No one really knows.

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 plays host to dozens of well-known figures from the early days of New Orleans. The most famous resident, according to most, is someone that very few graveyards in the country can lay claim to. A real voodoo queen. When the Atlantic slave trade brought millions of people out of Africa against their will and deposited them all over the New World, these people, Africans from dozens of distinct tribal groups, cultures, and languages, were forced to find a common ground.

At home, they might have been rivals, or even enemies. In captivity, though, unity meant survival. Today we call it the African diaspora, the dispersal of their culture and people and beliefs throughout the world. When everywhere that seed landed, they sprouted into something slightly different. What was known as voodoo in Africa became voodoo, hoodoo, voodun, and more, and each had its own character and uniqueness. Voodoo is considered to be a religion with its own core beliefs and leaders.

The voodoo of Louisiana has its own distinct flavors thanks to what's called syncretism, its blending with practices and beliefs from the Catholic Church. Much of how the Catholic Church has priests, voodoo practitioners honor kings and queens. A voodoo queen was someone who conducted ceremonies and ritual dances, sometimes to crowds in the thousands. To earn a living, these queens would make talismans for others to purchase and use, things like gree-gree bags which were filled with all sorts of ingredients, then blessed with intention and meaning.

These bags function similarly to crosses, or even worn around the neck in the same fashion. One voodoo queen who is still mentioned around New Orleans is Julie White, or maybe Julie Brown, or possibly Julie Black. All three names are on record, and no one knows for sure which one is real. She practiced in the late 1800s, and legend says that her cabin was near the borders of Manchuk Swamp. She was more reclusive than most voodoo queens, but visitors still came to her for blessing and predictions.

What she preferred to dole out, though, wasn't kind words. Only, they say, was cranky, and threatened everyone. Her favorite thing to do was to predict the destruction of local communities. In the Mississippi Delta, you never have to wait long for a flood or a storm, and Julie seemed to have an uncanny knack for prophesying some of those. If ever there was a shining example of a warm, inviting person, Julie White was probably not it. The most famous voodoo queen, though, hands down, lived a century before Julie White, and

her name was Marie Laveau. She was born in the French Quarter, sometime between 1795 and 1805, to Charles Laveau, the fifth mayor of New Orleans. She married in 1819, but her husband died just a year later. And with that, Marie was forced to find new ways to support herself. Local legend says that she worked for a time as a hairdresser, and there's some documentation that points to work as a liquor importer. There was some time after that, when Marie set in motion a legendary career as a practitioner

of voodoo. Let's put this in perspective. In 1874, she held a St. John's Eve gathering on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain. Estimates placed the total number of people in attendance at around 12,000. Maybe it was the power of voodoo at the time, or Marie's electric personality. It was probably a mixture of both, and people loved her for it. She followed in the same pattern as most voodoo queens. She held rites and ceremonies, and crafted gregory bags for sale.

Legend says that Marie learned the practice from an earlier voodoo king, Dr. John, and quickly became his cultural successor. She had the unique privilege of being able to host voodoo rites inside the largest Catholic Church in New Orleans, St. Louis Church. Thanks to her friendship with the church's rector, known locally as Pair Antoine. Most people have forgotten that their friendship was actually built on a very noble pursuit. Marie and Antoine worked together for years to free slaves in the New Orleans area. Marie was also said to be very well connected.

Countless public figures came to her for advice, and it was rumored that she also employed a network of spies throughout the city. All of those connections earned her influence and power. Something she wasn't afraid to use. One particular story about Marie LeVaux stands out. According to local legend, the son of a wealthy businessman was arrested and charged with murder in the mid-1830s. The father, aware of the reputation Marie had for getting what she wanted, offered her

a deal. If she could free his son, he would purchase her a house of her own. Marie accepted the offer. She said that she spent the weeks before the trial preying incessantly at St. Louis Church. In all the while, Marie held three hot guinea peppers in her mouth. When the morning of the trial came, she used her influence to get access to the courtroom, who said to have placed the peppers beneath the judge's chair. Filled with her prayers, they were a talisman designed to influence his mind.

In the end, the wealthy man's son was acquitted of all charges, and Marie received her reward. Whether it was her voodoo powers that made it possible, or simply her political clout and nebulous connections, we'll never really know. But in New Orleans, voodoo always gets the vote. Voodoo isn't the only cultural transplant in New Orleans, though. In a melting pot that includes Creole, Spanish, French, and Native American influences, it probably won't come as a surprise to hear that there are even Turkish stories whispered in the city.

What's surprising, however, is just how bloody they are. The house that stands at the corner of Dauphine Street and Orleans Avenue was built by Jean Baptiste Le Prit in 1836. Le Prit was a plantation owner who wanted a city home, so he built a Greek revival mansion as a retreat and a symbol of his wealth. But that wealth experienced hard times in the wake of the Civil War. Financial troubles forced Le Prit to move out of the mansion and find someone else to rent it from him.

I'm sure he expected another wealthy business owner, or a government official. Imagine his shock, then, when it was a Turkish prince who arrived at the door. The man told Le Prit that he was Prince Suleiman, former Sultan of an undisclosed country in the Middle East. Cash was exchanged, Le Prit turned over the keys, and the Sultan and his household moved in. According to the story, that household fit the stereotype one might expect from a film adaptation of the Arabian tale One Thousand and One Nights.

The Sultan had many wives, a large extended family, and a whole team of servants. The Sultan brought furniture and decorations with him, enormous rugs and tapestries, paintings and other symbols of his wealth and power. When they had settled into the mansion, a pair of Turkish soldiers were assigned to stand guard outside the door, armed with scimitars. But the guards weren't able to keep the rumors from spreading, and as they did, the stories grew more and more elaborate. Be said that the house would be quiet during the day, but after darkness fell, it would

come alive. The mansion, locals said, had become a pleasure palace. Nights were filled with orgies and extravagant parties. Some whispered that young women, even boys and girls, had gone missing in the neighborhood, and the blame was placed on the Sultan's appetite for carnal desires. There was no proof, of course, but neighbors loved to talk. Neighbors always loved to talk, and they always will, I suppose. People who walked past the mansion would often comment on the smell of incense that

drifted out of the windows, but that's not all the locals managed to notice. One morning, a neighbor was out for a walk, and as he passed by the Sultan's mansion, he noticed something dark on the front steps. He stopped and took a second look, and then slowly backed away in horror. Blood was everywhere, it covered the top step, and had run in small rivers down the dark stairs. And all of it seemed to have come from the narrow space beneath the door. The neighbor quickly went to the police, and they arrived a short time later.

After attempts to unlock the door failed, they forced their way in. What they found inside, though, was far worse than they'd imagined. Bodies lay all about the main hall. Some of them were complete, but most were torn apart and dismembered. The floor was covered in blood, and it was easy to see how it could have managed to run all the way to the doorway and then down the stairs. Everywhere they looked, there was death and gore. According to the story, the police continued on into the house and soon came upon the courtyard

garden near the rear of the mansion. At first, everything seemed normal there, but then one of the officers pointed to a spot on the ground. There, protruding from the wet soil, was a human hand. It's said that the sultan himself was spared the dismemberment that his household experienced. Instead, the killer had buried the prince alive in the garden after wrapping the man in three white sheets and binding him with rope. He had somehow managed to get one hand free before suffocating to death.

To this day, no one knows who the killer was, but there are theories. One suggestion was, oddly enough, pirates. It's not likely, and not a popular theory, but it suggests that perhaps the wealth and possessions inside the house were not really the sultans after all. Still, I have a hard time imagining pirates doing whatever it is that they do on land in the middle of a large city. The more popular theory is that the sultan was actually on the run from his homeland. People whispered that he wasn't really a prince, but the brother of one, and that he

had somehow stolen a portion of his brother's wealth and escaped to America. As a result, the false sultan was hunted down, and his entire household was killed for his crimes. Today, after decades of neglect, the mansion has been converted into luxury apartments. Tenants claim to have heard mysterious footsteps and the sounds of parties. Some have even heard the faint echo of unusual music, something that they've said has a Middle Eastern flavor. Others, though, have seen things.

Some have witnessed groups of ghostly people passing from room to room, or body parts that vanish a moment later. Most significantly, though, is the lone figure of a man who has been seen floating through the halls before mysteriously disappearing through locked doors. Perhaps even after all these years, the sultan is still looking for a way out. New Orleans is a big city, but the deep past, and I fully admit that its history and lore is larger than the picture I've painted here today. Maybe that's the power of it, the uniqueness of it, you know?

There are very few places in America that can claim as much tragedy over so many centuries, and that legacy shows. And the attraction of that legacy has never faded. Celebrities and tourists alike still flock to the city. Anne Rice gave it new life through her vampire novels, and in 2010, Nicolas Cage purchased a plot in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. He plans to build a tomb shaped like a small pyramid because, well, why the heck not, right? I think we would be missing the point to think of New Orleans as simply a place where Mardi

Gras happens every year, or a center for jazz and Cajun cuisine. She's bigger than that, deeper than that. There's a darkness, you see, and that floats just beneath the surface, and we'd be mistaken to ignore it. And some say that darkness still holds power. Remember Julie White, the voodoo queen who lived on the edge of Manchec Swamp? Like Marie Laveau, she was sought after by many in the community for her advice and oracle-like predictions.

And because of that, she had quite a following. Still, her final prediction left people feeling unsettled. One day, she said, I'm going to die, and I'm going to take all of you with me. Julie did die, of course, in late September of 1915. She was feared, yes, but she was also deeply loved, and so the locals gathered in large numbers to throw her the funeral that they felt she deserved. And on the day of that gathering, September 21st, a category four hurricane made landfall, ripping through New Orleans and the surrounding area.

Out of nowhere, 130-mile-per-hour winds and 15-foot waves ravaged the Delta region. Everyone at the funeral died, nearly 200 of them, they say, and locals from the town of Frenier were left with the grim task of gathering the bodies and burying them in a mass grave inside the swamp. And today, more than a century later, locals say that bodies will occasionally float to the surface of the water. Perhaps it's just a natural process for a swamp that's filled with hundreds of corpses. Or maybe Julie White, the oracle of Manchuk Swamp, just wants us to never forget that

she was right. This episode of lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Mankey. Lore is much more than a podcast. There's a book series in bookstores around the country and online, and the second season of the Amazon Prime television show was recently released. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life. I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, and Unobscured. And I think you'd enjoy both.

Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn about both of those shows and everything else going on all over in one central place, theworldoflore.com slash now. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just search for Lore podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And as always, thanks for listening.