Here are a couple of ways in which red brick dust is used in New Orleans Hoodoo. In addition to its use in protective works, red brick dust has been used in a variety of different ways to exploit its powerful protective properties. Zozo LaBrique sold her dust for a nickel a bucket, and when she died a small fortune in those coins is said to have been found in her disreputable quarters. It is true that now many people will tell you that they do this only for reasons of cleanliness yet, that was its original meaning, and many stoops in the poorer section of the city have a well-scrubbed, whitish appearance, showing that brick dust has been used. It has long been a custom among some New Orleans housewives to scrub their front steps with brick dust, a tradition having a definite connection with Voodoo-the washing away of an evil omen placed on the house by an enemy. She was fixed, they say, by Marie Laveau because the latter wanted to rule the Voodoos alone. Zozo LaBrique, a well-known New Orleans street character, an apparently half-demented creature, who peddled buckets of brick dust. He writes about it in his book Voodoo in New Orleans: It should come as no surprise that Robert Tallant (1984) has something to say about red brick dust as well. Add a couple of drops of urine from a child and use the mixture as a floor wash, this will complete making your home hex-proof. Keep a pan of water that has been treated with a ball of Indigo bluing (anil) behind your front door, and draw crosses using cascarilla behind every door of the house. Simply get an old red brick, hammer it to dust, and spread the dust around the front of your house, using a broom. Orleanians since before the time of Marie Laveau swear by the power of red brick dust to ward off evil.

In the The Life and Works of Marie Laveau, for example, Raul Canizares (2001) talks about hex-proofing the home Orleans-style: The use of red bricks has been mentioned in a number of writings.

Since that time, red bricks remain plentiful and can be procured all over the city. The last reference to the Dumaine Street Brickyard in print was in connection with Voodoo Queen Sanité Dédé in 1825. It is said that red bricks were taken from the Dumaine Street Brickyard-the earliest place in New Orleans in which Voodoo rituals occurred-and were used in rituals and floor washes. In New Orleans, the most commonly known use for red brick dust is its application in pulverized dust form to the front steps of the home as a means of keeping evil away. Irosun powder is used in Ifá for divining purposes it is sprinkled on the divining tray by the diviner and figures of Ifá are marked on the tray in the powder (Bascom, 1991). Termites eat the outer white portion of the wood, leaving the heartwood to produce the reddish powder called osun. Irosun powder is red dust produced by termites from the barwood (Pterocarpus osun) and camwood (Baphia nitida) trees. Many suggest that the origin of the use of red brick dust can be traced to traditional African irosun powder.

The shell was found within the grave and is assumed by archeologists to have functioned as the receptacle which held the paint used during body preparation rituals (Campbell, 1957). For example, a human burial ground was found at Caplen Mound on Galveston Island, Texas which had a clam shell covered with a thin layer of red ochre.

Red ochre paint was used to imbue the newly departed with symbolic blood. Residues of red ochre clays have been found in burial contexts all over the world from Paleolithic peoples in Europe to Late Holocene peoples of the Americas. And, ochre pigments were used by Cro-Magnon artists who painted prehistoric cave paintings in southern Europe between 32,000 and 10,000 years ago. For example, medicinal use of red ochre clay is described in the Ebers Papyrus from Egypt, dating to about 1550 B.C. It comes as no surprise that red bricks would also be used in the makeshift shrines seen around the city in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.īut where did this practice come from? One can only surmise but, the fact of the matter is that red ochre clays have been used medicinally and ritualistically since the earliest of times. New Orleanians have found a variety of esoteric uses for them- they are the preferred writing implement for marking 3 cross marks on the grave of our infamous Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau and they are used in pulverized form at the front door to keep away evil. Red bricks can be seen all over New Orleans, from the old brick streets to the brick graves in the Cities of the Dead.

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