HANGING OMINOUSLY above the door is the jawbone of an alligator, browned with age but nonetheless still menacing. The room is cluttered with the remains of similarly unpleasant creatures: jars containing mouse bones, various animal skins and the pickled parts of creatures that never grew into anything recognisable.
A large, elderly woman reclines at the counter, a big toothy smile stretching across her face. With a gentle wave, she ushers guests towards a moth-eaten curtain, behind which, she says, 'all will be explained'.
New Orleans' Voodoo Museum, in the heart of the city's French Quarter, is exactly what you'd expect of a shrine to the cottage religion of the Deep South - it's small, oppressive and distinctly not of this world. In a city whose history is built on legends, mysteries and ghostly goings-on, the museum is just one of the neighbourhood's myriad spooky places. It is also an essential stop for anyone who wishes to understand the superstitions and black magic that infuse every nook and cranny of this eeriest of cities.
Opened in 1971, the museum is dedicated to the creed cobbled together from Catholic rituals and African paganism that arrived with slaves from French-governed Haiti more than 200 years ago. It is housed in a tiny terraced building off Bourbon Street. Small and dusty, it would also be cosy and inviting if it weren't for the fact that every wall and shelf displays disturbing evidence of a religion designed to give you the frights.
The mouse bones - and the dead rats, skunk heads and snakeskins; in fact the remains of any dead animals - are actually symbols of good, not evil. Every voodoo believer has a bagful of animal remains, or ju-ju, to ward off evil spirits. Even the stillborn animals that stare boggle-eyed from jars of formaldehyde are good-luck charms to keep the demons away.
If there's no ju-ju around, then bring out your gris-gris bag. Museum proprietor Charles Gandolfo will mix you some gris-gris for US$10 (HK$78). He won't tell you what's in it, but suffice to say, it will attract good spirits and keep bad ones at bay. Gris-gris takes its name from the French word for grey, the colour the contents turn once Gandolfo has boiled them up in his pot.
