Special thanks to those, in New Orleans and elsewhere, who have helped me with this book: to Paul Nevski of Le Monde Creole; to the Staff of the Historic New Orleans Collection; to Tim Trahan of Animal Arts in New Orleans; to Priestess Miriam of the Voodoo Spirit Temple; to Greg Osborn of the New Orleans Public Library; to Adrian and Victoria; to Kate Miciak; to Diana Paxson; and always, to George.

TERMINOLOGY OF VOODOO Since voodoo terms were originally transliterated from various West African languages through creolized French, spelling is a matter of guesswork. I have in most cases used the modern Haitian spellings and names as found in Metraux's Voodoo in Haiti, the starting point of much of my research.

The shape and structure of voodoo in Louisiana in the 1830s is something that can only be guessed at. Refugees fleeing the uprisings in Sainte Domingue (the island now divided into Haiti and Santo Domingo) brought extensive voodoo beliefs with them to a land that already had its own variants of these same practices, and much depended on the religion's interaction with its immediate surroundings. In Haiti, after the black revolution, voodoo became an accepted religion; in Louisiana its evolution was marked by external pressures from the prevailing Christianity and culture. In addition, the voodoo loa tends to proliferate: There are dozens of variations of the spirit Ezili (or Erzuli), of Ogu (Ogou)-Ogu Feray, Ogu Badagri, Ogu Osanyl, and Sen (or San) Jak, Maje and others-of Baron (or Bawon) Samedi or Cemetery, also known as Baron La Croix. I have simplified as much as I can without doing violence to what I understand to be the basic tenets of the religion.

Some loa:

Ogzc (or Ogou)-warrior spirit of justice, often depicted as a soldier; frequently identified with Saint James the Greater Shango-blacksmith spirit, also warrior; a spirit of iron and fire Ezili (or Erzuli)-spirit of womanhood, in various incarnations a mother and an Aphrodite flirt Baron Samedi (or Baron Cemetery)-lord of the dead, often depicted as an obscene trickster, lord ofthe Gu?d?