hello world
been reading this book, like i got time for discretionary reading
bonnie was reading it and when she finished said i might be interested
i glance at it, the historical marie laveau
title: a new orleans voudou priestess
i dont testify for it, ive just started it
but i found the intro chapter fascinating
chronicles the process by which marie laveau was mythologized
and is in process of being transformed into a historical ancestor
a voodoo lakwa
now this is interesting to me on a lot of level
for one mythmaker is one of my primary attribues,
(just thinking it would be nice to engage mythmaking in rest on the
level of literary sophistication wideman engaged prophecy in cattlekilling)
so anyway rest is all about mythwork
as is my life this blog and all my works
the mythworkers best myth is always themselves
which brings me to my girl zora, an unreliable narrator in all her works
zora wasnt looking for truth, zora was mythworking
you got the work she did with that WWII piece on highjohn the conqueror
which made a returning culture hero out of folkloric john tricking master tales
and a hoodoo root named after highjohn the conqueror,
she put the two together and came up with this myth of a returning hero
who helped get blackfolk out of slavery by tricking old massa and
whose soul returns to the root until called again by the cries of the people
this was some sophisticated mythwork, by making him a returning culture hero
who will come whenever the folk in need, the recurrent manifestation of the conqueror
will be shaped to the needs of that generation
(thinking about how to work all this into rest - you know i almost hate teaching that class, mumbojumbo, thehealing, corrigedora, beloved, mamaday, texaco and the cattlekilling - everytime i read/teach them the bar for rest seem to get higher - something in those 7 works i think represents the redemption of the african american soul and the salvation of our generations, i need to add one more, rest will make it 9)
so anyway, aint hardly nothing zora claim actually true
my girl was a serious mythworker and i claim mythwork as a hoodoo legacy
in the name of zora neale
her autobiographies are a joke, and quite a bit of the hoodoo/voudou stuff she account in mules and men etc is questionable or relatively easily traced to other sources
but she worked it, she shaped the nature of hoodoo on the cutting edge and took it to new ground,
highjohn the conqueror was givien afroam folkloric attributes instead of the european/christian john the conqueror attributes which i assume come from john the baptist
but zoras best myth was herself, thats why she will tell you this blend of truth, fiction and folklore cause good mythwork have to be historically possible, not necessarily true
but possible
in the same way im constantly tending the the mythwork of rickydoc trickmasterr
every word i say, every act i make is to build this historical enttity
wouldbe hoodoo prophet and returning culture hero as
horse of the conqueror - i aspire to tribal ancestorship
thats why it dont really bother me not to get play in my lifetime
im playing for higher stakes
zora as mythworker is probably my closest historical model
hoodoo mythworker and novelist in the literary hoodoo tradition
zora neale Worked the cutting edge
so anyway this book on how the legend of marie leveau was mythologized
how the legends and the nature of her power and life were attributed to her over the years
i find this fascinating reading, this book i will take the time to read
and try to work whatever mythwork understandings i get into this draft of rest
(that justifies me taking the time out to acdtually do discretionary reading, now its research!)
im not going to be able to get into this too deeply right now
too many end of semester obligations, im still under the gun
ill work this one this week
what ive gotten so far, really off the cuff
attempt to find the historical marie leveau
1st lwp (lousiana writers project) part of wpa during depression did a lot of black folkloric work
one project was to find the true story of marie leavau, did bunch of interviews
transcribed civil and ecclesasical records relating to marie her family and associaties
translated french and spanish into english, copies 19th century newsappar aqrtices on voudou
interviewed 70 folk born between 1853 and 1878 who remembered her or her successor
interviewees old and remembering stuff far in the past and of varying % of reliability
and wpa fieldworkers take unrealiable notes - got to work w/what we got
1940 wpa employee catherin dillon uses material to write 700 page "voodoo" manuscript, with chapters
on marie "marie the great" and "marie the mysterious"
this work (and obits when she dies) become core of legend
(now the question is how to shape the legends of today and into what relationship with afroam and human destiny - who are the players current, what role are they playing, who do i want to exalt and whose influence do i need to diminish destinically speaking)
another based on newspaper and printed sources was done by marcus christian, dir of lwps 'negro unit' at dillard university
this information is housed in various places, cammie henry research center at the watson memorial library at tulane university and other places she mentions in the work - most of this stuff im taking straight from the work, i will digest it later, im just trying to get the fact straight right now, these are research notes
telling you what she says about the evolution of the marie leveau legend (and pondering its pertenance to my own contemporary mythwork in my attempts to shape the africanamerican soul and destiny (and that of all humanity, okay, enuf pontifcation, back to work)
god this is so fascinating to me, make the old mythmaker drool
this gon put me in a speculative mood about a subject thats dear to me
cause thats what i think of my works as, my attempts to create contemporary myths
that will shape the hoodoo future, shape the afroam future, shape the future of humanity
my Works and the model of my life that i am constructing and mythworking thru my works
i want to be the model of the hoodoo future - guide and guardian of the tribal soul and destiny
i believe indigenous traidtions have that responsiblity for their respective cultures
and the critieria of successful tradition is in the quality of the lives its adherents live
folk in the tradition always want to exol the african way of god but if we were so strong
our people wouldnt be suffering all over the world, no, whatever we doing it aint working
christanity and islam kicking our ass all over the board
all over the world african peoples are suffering, all over the world
this simply will not do and we cant keep on doing what we been doing and call it grace
no, we got to come up with some new licks, got to flip the script
move to higher ground
okay, where was i, i got to get through this little project, i got work to do
so anyway marie was illiiterate so she left behind no records of her voice
and its all thru accounts of others
she dies june 15, 1881, 1st acccounts are the obits, obits and articles in the local papers
most laduatory of her charity work, some sensationalist, basic journalist practices of the era prevail
many ways of spelling laveau
writer shooses to stay w/laveau
obits perpetuate truths, semitruths and fantasys, kinda like perceptions of hoodoo et al today
many of these mythwork by maries daugther marie philomene glapion legendre
mythwork is a basic hoodoo skill, mostly though its practiced on the communal level
you have to establish yourself as a competent worker of magic - establish yourself as a font of good advice
with glibzliation and the web that communal representation can now emcompass the world
i try to do this in my works, i remember the decision to acknowledge and play my hoodoo thing in mojo rising and consequently this blog, this was a major decision for me,
i had always kept my hoodoo thing occult, i work it in fiction but fiction is special, you can always claim its just art, just reserarch, but then i decided to acknowledge myself publicly as a hoodoo
my concern was that i would be perceived as a classic folkmagic hoodoo and that aint me at all, i practice what im calling high hoodoo, highmagic instead of folkmagic
but my brand of hoodoo is not considered valid hoodoo in hoodoo circles, literary hoodoo im asked, whats that, highmagic, you mean you dont do potions - well no, actually i dont, that dont interest me
so ive had to basically define myself into the mix, present my opinions here and in hoodoo forums and forums of traditional african religions knowing ima get buked and scorned, or even worse ignored
but i juust keep swinging, my goal is to leave a papertrail, a record of struggle that lays out my vision of tribal and human destiny, i want to shape the hoodoo future, and i want hoodoo to take responsibilty for human destiny, oh i got big ambitions
im trying to move reality
like a conjure should
and reality dont move easy
but thats what make me a magician
if it was easy everybody would walk down the street and get some
ima do what i can do
ive had some success , i understand the dynamic
i live and breath it
ive had to establish myself culturally as a viable magician and wouldbe prophet
a manifestation of magic and prophecy that make sense to the 21st century sensibility
people think folk like me are only historical, that we dont show up no more i guess
but thats cause destinywork is only recognized in the historical
okay rick, chill w/the huffing and puffing
where was i
this post will cover a lot of ground obviously
believe im going to have to close shop for moment
i will come back to it
finish transcribing raw notes and speculations
clean it up for roostblog
incorporate speuclations into rest
and my mythwork
but for right now ive tired myself out
and i got so much work to do
forgive spelling, typos and all that
aint time time to work that just now
also i got to call papa gede nibo bey
and interview him about how he made this chain
the 1st ever hoodoo divination chain
surely i can mythwork that
in the name of the conqueror
rickydoc trickmaster
wouldbe prophet of the hoodoo way
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