The House of the Voodoo Ritual
photo taken from crestock.com
There is a calm and serene looking house located along the Victorian mansion’s on First Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. The house was originally built in 1868 by a successful merchant, and has housed about several families in this time span of 137 years. From the outside, the house seems to be quite normal and unsuspecting of any sort of strange or paranormal events. However, a few years ago a discovery was made that changed the view in which this house was viewed upon. As renovations were going on in the house, a small room was discovered.
This small room was hidden by intricate woodwork, combined with the angles of the wall. Workmen removed a piece of plaster, which lead to the discovery of this concealed space. Inside they found dust and paint colors which suggested that no one had been in the spot for a hundred years. When the floorboards were pulled, workers discovered a three foot square space that held a human skill with two femurs. The femurs mysteriously crossed under the skull, as if to symbolize the flags of pirates.
Now, although pirates were believed to have visited New Orleans centuries ago, this bone arrangement suggested that this was the site of a voodoo ritual. The skull was studied and examined by experts, and they found it to be that of an adolescent male who was deformed while living. One of the femurs was that of this male, but the other was from a different person, but of similar sex and age. No one is quite sure what type of voodoo ritual would have taken place during the time period and in this particular arrangement of bones. Some believe that this arrangement is actually that of a vampire ritual.
Not much is known about vampire rituals that were done, but history shows that bones were placed in this formation to display a pirate symbol. The hope in doing this was to help scare away vampires, along with the use of garlic and crosses. Orbs are often seen in photographs taken at night, usually emanating from the ground. Streaks of light have also been known to appear in photographs. Another interesting fact about this house is that the porch ceiling is painted sky blue. This is a familiar attribute to the houses in the Garden District of New Orleans because it was believed that this moved spirits away from the house. The people thought this would trick the ghosts in thinking it was daytime, and it was commonly believed that no ghosts would haunt during the day.
(Source: Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans. 2007.)
