Creole Louisiana is best known for its association with voodoo as an Afro-Catholic set of religious practices. This is combination of French culture and voodoo in Louisiana.
Creole African Americans associated many voodoo spirits with the Christian saints known to preside over the same domain. They practiced making and wearing charms and amulets for protection, healing, or the harm of others. This was a key aspect for the Lousiana voodoo. There are four phases to the voodoo ritual, all identifiable by song being sung, preparation, invocation, possession, and farewell. Saints Day , the day after Halloween is more important for the Lousiana Creoles than any other area in the country. It is both a Holy Catholic Day and a day of family unity.
This day is relatively close to that celebrated in latin America known as the “Day of the Dead”. Families get together to praise the graves by decorating them for all the saints. On this day the family makes a big celebration by having a picnic lunch at the cemetery. Flowers picked for the Saints were to be everlasting through the year. In order to make this possible they used waxed paper flower wreaths. The women were in charge of making these wreaths.
In some French Catholic cemeteries in southeast Louisiana parishes, a mass is followed by a candlelight ceremony in the graveyard and a blessing of the tombs. Each family member would put the candle on their family’s tomb and kneel down and the priest would bless the dead. Many churches do conduct daytime mass followed by a blessing of the cemetery. In New Orleans, the Mardi Gras festival draws large numbers of people from all over the world.
The also have what is called a Zulu parade. This is a type of carnival that involves white class participants marching in the parade with their faces painted the color black. The other major group is the Mardi Gras Indians who take their names from the Creole Wild West. Cajun culture was a great influence to the creole Mardi Gras.
This was taken from the tradition of the French which was to go from house to house with men dressed as women. Mardi Gras is an occasion that is open to all creoles, not just one group.
