Saturday, May 1, 2010

Day 94 :: Voodoo Village ::



Jonathan and I have always wanted to venture out to the infamous Mary Angela Rd. to take some photos of Voodoo Village. So today, despite the sirens and weather, we went.
Here is what HauntedAmerica has to say about this area:

Though reporters are often chased away, photographers have often felt the wrath of the Villagers and it is a long standing warning that no photographs are to be taken inside the Village or even from the road. Many who have tried have been pelted with rocks and sticks and chased out of the road by machete-wielding residents.

Some locals in the know claim that photographs are prohibited because, once developed, they will reveal the ghosts of the many people who have lost their lives to Villagers over the years. Still others insist that photographs will reveal the Villagers as they truly are – aging and corpse-like, kept artificially young by the many sacrifices and the pacts with the Devil made by their leader, Harris.

For Memphis natives growing up in the area, Voodoo Village was a place of curiosity and fear.

“Everyone got dared to go down there,” says Holly, a native of Memphis now living in Louisiana. “If you were a teenager, it was the thing to do – get chased by the Voodoo people.”

Holly stated that she can remember vividly the fantastic artwork and trees hung with fetishes and spirit bottles, before she and her friends were chased out of the Village by a group of turban-wearing women.

“They had to put a big fence around it, and a gate,” Holly says, “because it was just so popular with the local kids.”
Popular, maybe, but what of the strange rituals? In one encounter, described by a Memphis reporter, a Village resident asked if he (the reporter) was a member of “the Lodge.” When the reporter replied that he was not, the Villager responded that he “wouldn’t understand any of it” and that he had better get out.

Just what it is that can’t be understood is anyone’s guess. With the fervor of Masons everywhere, the Villagers jealously guard their rituals and culture. Some have speculated that the allusion to a “lodge” could have many meanings beyond the average Masonic lodge, pointing out that many Satanic cults refer to their groups as being part of a “lodge.”

Whatever is going on back there in Voodoo Village, it is definitely not a place to get lost around. One unfortunate man who got a flat tire near the Village late one night claims to have heard hoarse croaking and chanting coming from the darkened houses. He reports that he was “never so happy to see AAA!”


So. True stories or not, this is a very historic place and full of mystery.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Haunted nonsense. Eccentric, spiritual and masonic, yes. Wash Harris was my ex-husband's grandfather. My ex lived in "voodoo village" as a child and went to Coro Lake Elementary school. His grandmother was a typical loving, doting grandmother who raised him (and his brother) for many years after his father drown in the river near Mud Island bringing in his fishing nets one night.

Interesting facebook page on its history http://www.facebook.com/pages/Voodoo-Village/236558084643?v=info

E. Harris