The Dead Centre of New Orleans

St Louis Cemetery is the most famous New Orleans graveyard. None contain any conventional graves, only above-ground vaults of all shapes and sizes, because the city is below sea level and any hole immediately fills with water. It is a Catholic burial ground, the religion of its French heritage, with a non-Catholic area.
The Catholic part contains the tomb of New Orleans’ most celebrated voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. This is her tomb. Voodoo offerings are still being left in front of the tomb, with marks on the walls (XXX) to ensure favourable acceptance.

Voodoo originated from the Haitian slaves and applied charms and spells, also holy entities to grant wishes. Apparently many found they could accommodate Catholicism and Voodoo at the same time, as both creeds used rituals, sacred objects and holy men to influence events when petitioned in the appropriate way.
The vaults are placed higgledy-piggledy, no straight lines, and in parts are quite dilapidated. This gives a general idea.

Here is the magnificent mausoleum of the Italian Mutual Benevolent Association, built in 1857. It’s a group effort, ensuring costs and upkeep can be met. Jane in front gives an idea of its size.

Who can remember the Lonnie Donnegan hit, the Battle of New Orleans?  It’s the story of how the Americans won this final battle of the 1812 to 1815 war against the British. This tombstone records the death of one Oliver ***, who “died in the defence of the city of New Orleans in the battle with the British Army December 23^rd 1814”. I always thought that Lonnie was singing about the battle of New Orleans because we’d won it.

Film actor Brad Pitt had several houses in the city, some of which he needed to sell to pay taxes. He is increasingly involved in social issues and in particular has spearheaded reconstruction projects in the deprived Ninth Ward that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. We were told that he has reserved a space here in the cemetery, in the shape of this pyramid (indicated with a white arrow). It’s maybe his money stash- the last place the taxman would look.

So burials are still on-going. In this sort of arrangement you can keep going upwards. It was an interesting visit. There was also a musicians vault, and the first World Champion chess player is interred here: he finally got check-mated.

We must now hop on our hop-on hop-off bus tour and hop off at another destination.