There
are hundreds of fascinating and frightening
tales that come down to us from the days of
Old New Orleans, but though they all puzzle
us only a few of them actually reach out and
touch our present-day lives in a real way.
The Legend of the Devil Baby, the enduring
ghosts of Marie Laveau and Prince Ke’yama,
the Chicken Man are only a few of the legends
that repeatedly surface, year after year,
in modern tales experienced by local residents
and visitors alike.
Among
these tales one of the most tragically gruesome
is that of Little Violette whose name rings
through infamy, forever associated with the
epithet “The Zombie Child.”
Here, then, is her story, just as it was told
to me by a grand old dame of the secret Vodoun
sosyete founded by New Orleans legend Marie
Laveau who had heard it firsthand from her
grandmothers and aunts, all followers of Laveau’s
successor, Mam’zelle Malvina LaTour.
According to most sources, Malvina experienced
the entire event while an adolescent child
learning the dark arts of her African ancestors
alongside her mother, who was a student of
Marie Laveau, and numerous aunts who were
all members of Laveau’s sosyete.
It is said that the child was born into one
of the wealthiest families in Old New Orleans;
although the surname has been obscured by
the passage of time (perhaps deliberately
so), the given names of her parents never
change in the telling: they were called Robért
and Yvette among the Europeans and Creoles.
Most believe they once lived in a beautiful
home on the edge of the Old Quarter on lands
then owned by members of the great Marigny
family. Their marriage, while both were still
quite young, had been a joyous occasion and
the source of celebration among all the extended
members of their family. But though they were
wealthy and rich in love, for several years
the greatest blessing – that of a healthy
child – seemed to elude them.
On the advice of an elderly aunt, Robert sought
the help of one of the most famous physicians
then practicing in New Orleans, Dr. Joseph
Victor Gottschalk, known to all as “Physician,
Surgeon, Occultist and Accoucheur.”
In these last two capacities, particularly,
Dr. Gottschalk was to serve his clients only
too well, for when his skills as physician
helped produce the desired result –
pregnancy in Yvette – his services as
an “accoucheur,” the French name
for male mid-wife, were then also required.
However, in a tragic twist of fate, his dabbling
in the occult, and his association with others
who practiced the forbidden crafts, would
secure a place in legend for Yvette’s
child.
Beautiful little Violette , it is said, came
into the world in one of those vibrant New
Orleans springs that make a person happy to
simply be alive. In the courtyards and alcoves
of the old Quarter the foliage was growing
lush and every breeze smelled like mimosa
and honeysuckle in the day while in the evenings
the scent of jasmine hung heavy on the air.
Across the Marigny estates the native azaleas
were budding and the dogwoods bursting into
bloom. It seemed that the entire landscape
had been painted by some unseen hand to be
a gift in celebration of the arrival of little
Violette.
Relieved of her nine month burden, the young
mother, Yvette, held socials in her home where
the landed and the wealthy came bearing tokens
of welcome for the little girl whom the doting
parents had named Violette because her eyes
were the color of pure amethysts. While the
women cooed over the gorgeous child, the men
heaped congratulations on the proud father,
Robert. For the first time, the couple felt
their married life was now complete.
For the first year of Violette’s life
the feeling of joy and contentment reigned
over the little family. The child thrived
under the care of Dr. Gottschalk who had secured
a mulatto woman to provide constant care for
the beautiful little girl. Violette’s
life was once of pampered elegance, because
her parents had so longed for a child; the
baby lacked nothing and the budding little
girl had no wants. The doctor himself presented
little Violette with a pair of beautiful amethyst
earrings, a mere reflection of the color of
her eyes, that had been sent to him by his
sister Adelaide in Philadelphia as a gift
for the little girl.
Robert’s business often took him to
more distant areas of the estates where he
is supposed to have acted on behalf of Count
Marigny in the capacity of manager of the
estate overseers. Little Violette would watch
wide-eyed when her father rode away to work
and would wait patiently in her nursery, sometimes
for several days, for his return. Eventually,
as she grew, she made her discontent with
Robert’s absence well known, throwing
a tantrum every time he prepared to depart
and insisting that he take her with him. Yvette,
however, always objected to the mere suggestion
that Robert might take Violette into the swampy
lowlands and woods of the unoccupied estates
where she might be exposed, so Yvette assumed,
to all sorts of dangers, not the least of
which were the slaves and Native Indians who
resided there.
Violette
lacked nothing and the budding little girl
had no wants.
But even the most doting mother cannot be
at hand all the time and one day Yvette received
a message that her mother was ill and had
asked for her daughter to come and nurse her.
Reportedly, Yvette’s mother lived a
sizeable distance outside New Orleans, among
the Acadiens of St. John Parish, and Yvette
was adamant that Violette should not make
the rigorous trip perhaps to be exposed to
the dangers of the road. So Violette was to
remain at home in the care of her mulatto
nurse while Yvette went to her mother’s
aid.
Now it was said that the nurse always spoiled
the now five-year-old Violette, giving in
to her whims and letting her have almost anything
she asked for, even, so they say, despite
the approval of the child’s mother.
So it was that on a day when Robert was departing
and Violette was embroiled in another of her
violent tantrums the well-meaning nurse gave
in to Violette’s demands to accompany
her father. And Robert, seeing no harm in
it, agreed to take the little girl along.
They were gone for almost five days when in
the dusk of the fifth day the mulatto woman
watched from the porch as Robert’s surrey
heaved into view. It seemed that the little
trap was hurrying more than usual and the
nurse could hear the rapid beat of the horse’s
hooves as it drew nearer. A sudden fear fell
over the nurse as she ran down the porch steps
to meet her master’s carriage and her
heart nearly burst when she saw Robert hunched
over and carrying a small bundle in his arms.
It was little Violette, lying limp and feverish
in her father’s arms.
“Send for Dr. Gottschalk!” Robert
barked as he ran upstairs to place his limp
burden in her nursery bed. “Take the
trap!” came his order and at this two
strong house servants jumped into the little
surrey and disappeared in a cloud of dust,
heading for the Old Quarter.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the surrey
once again came into view, this time accompanied
by a man on horseback. Robert recognized the
tall figure of Dr. Gottschalk. The two men
met at the front door and as they ascended
the stairs, two at a time, Robert provided
Dr. Gottschalk with all the information he
could about little Violette’s condition.
The physician came to Violette’s bedside
and examined her with an expression of grave
fear on his face. The flaccidity of her little
white arms and legs, the languid, almost lifeless
expression except where the fever burned,
like two clown spots, one on each little cheek.
The child’s breathing was shallow and
every few minutes she shivered as if a chill
wracked through her little body.
Dr. Gottschalk took Robert aside. The news
was grave. Violette had contracted a delirium
fever, possibly Scarlet fever or malaria,
and it had so drained her tiny body that there
was little hope of her survival. “We
can make her comfortable, insofar as that
is possible,” he said as Robert fell
to his knees beside the little girl’s
bed. “But I do not expect that she will
be with us tomorrow.”
Nearby the mulatto nurse wept quietly, but
Robert, already wracked with guilt at having
taken Violette against his wife’s constant
wishes, now cried out miserably, “My
child! My little child!”
Though he could do nothing to stave off the
illness, Dr. Gottschalk did not leave the
child’s side that night, ministering
to her as best he could as the fever ran it’s
course. Just before dawn, with the birds beginning
their morning song outside, the beautiful
little angel with the haunting violet eyes
passed from this life. The doctor, looking
out into the morning, remembered a spring
five years before, when the innocent one had
come into the world. He sighed and was grieved
that he should also be in attendance at her
passing.
Indeed, it was Gottschalk who made the funeral
arrangements for Violette as her father Robert
succumbed to his grief and could not be comforted.
The next visitor to the elegant Marigny home
was a New Orleans undertaker who came to prepare
the little body for it’s last presentation.
Word was sent to St. John Parish to tell Yvette
that her dearest child was no more.
Such was the lamentation and grief that accompanied
the end of this child’s life that many
who saw it compared it to the great Danse
Macabre of medieval times, for it seemed Death
had visited even the countenances of the living
as they tried to come to terms with the loss
of such a beautiful little girl. The funeral
procession to St. Louis Cathedral was a long
river of black following the cortege and the
little copper casket that held Violette. Afterwards,
led by the priests, the river changed course
and flowed to the Bayou Cemetery on the city’s
outskirts, where Robert’s family had
donated a picturesque spot for the interment
of their jewel. They laid Violette in the
good, dry earth of the Esplanade Ridge and
were loathe to leave her there when the time
came to go.
Robert’s guilt and grief were only exacerbated
by the grief of his young wife. Yvette’s
mourning had taken on tragic proportions and
almost immediately it became apparent that
her mind had suffered a blow from which it
could not recover. The once-beautiful and
bright home on the Marigny estate was now
encased in an almost impenetrable darkness
and no one, not the well-meaning visitors
nor the prayerful religious, nor the stern
Dr. Gottschalk could stem the tide of mourning
and bereavement.
Robert and Yvette seemed to take their grief
in shifts, and at any given time one or the
other of them could be found sitting in Little
Violette’s nursery, staring blankly
at the wall. All business, all domestic obligations
seemed to come to a complete halt and had
it not been for the reliable servants, the
home and lands might have gone derelict. There
seemed to be nothing that could bring back
the light that Death had snuffed out when
He took Violette.
It was into this Stygian atmosphere that Dr.
Gottschalk came when little Violette was nearly
three weeks in the grave. Try as he might,
he could not dissuade the young couple from
their grief. No prescription seemed to work
and the mere suggestion that there might be
other children yet to come produced angry
outbursts from both parents. Desperately sad,
but unable to salve the melancholy that faced
him, Gottschalk resigned himself that there
was nothing more to be done for the couple.
Thus he was surprised when one rainy day,
nearly four weeks since Violette’s death,
when he was locking up his surgery for the
evening, none other than Robert himself accosted
him on the street. Gottschalk looked at him:
the man seemed strangely animated, his movements
furtive and nervous. It was with no small
amount of shock and consternation, then that
Gottschalk recoiled from Robert even more
after he had taken him inside to hear out
this madman’s proposal.
“It is said that you know about these
things,” Robert rambled wildly. “Then
you must know something of what I am asking
you.”
“What you are asking is blasphemous
in the eyes of God and man, Robert!”
Gottschalk is said to have responded at first.
“I will not do it. Not for all the money
in the world,” he added quickly as Robert
produced a copious amount of gold and paper
money.
“Then tell me who will!” Robert
demanded, but Gottschalk was adamant. “Very
well,” Robert growled. “I will
find someone who has the courage to do the
deed!”
Gottschalk watched as Robert rushed out into
the rainy street. “The child has been
dead a month, Robert! Let her rest in peace,
in the name of the saints!” Not only was Robert requesting him to perform a blasphemous act, it was also
an illegal one. Any New Orleans or Columbus criminal defense attorney would
have advised Robert to give up his quest on that fact alone.
Now in those days money might buy anything,
even the name of a person of power who could
do extraordinary things. Whether in league
with God or the Devil, Robert did not care:
he would find the person who would help him
put an end to his pain and bring back the
mind of his beloved wife. Thus, lurking outside
the gates of Congo Square in the wild torchlight
of one of the great vodoun “bamboulas,”
Robert found a link in the chain he had been
dredging through the darkest of his thoughts.
To hear Malvina LaTour tell the tale, she
stood beside Robert on the night he made the
hellish pact with the mavens of Marie Laveau’s
secret sosyete. LaTour is said to remember
it well as the first such ritual she participated
in. Not only this, she also maintained that
she was the one who led them all to the dark
little Bayou Cemetery gravesite.
What Robert and Yvette desired had been the
heart’s wish of bereaved parents since
time immemorial; it was only a rare few, however,
who attempted what he was about to allow.
Because what Robert had done that night in
the wild heat of the bamboula was make a pact
with the reigning vodusi; for money, they
had agreed to attempt to bring back his beloved
Little Violette.
By methods best kept secret and which even
LaTour in her retelling would not reveal,
the decaying corpse of Little Violette was
removed from her resting place in the old
Bayou Cemetery and taken to a secret location
where for one full cycle of the moon it was
subjected to the most powerful vodoun magic
that had been performed by that most secret
sosyete up to that time. In dark bargains
with the keepers of the dead and Death himself,
the high vodoun mambo and her followers were
attempting something that was only heard of
in legends.
Back in their brooding Marigny home, Robert
and Yvette waited for the appointed time to
pass. As the passage of the moon brought it
again to full, one night there came a knock
at the front door.
The couple rushed to open it and was puzzled
to see an old vodusi matron standing there,
with only the girl, Malvina, standing next
to her. Imagine, then, the joy that overcame
them as the old black woman moved the folds
of her skirt to reveal none other than the
dear, departed, but now very much alive Violette
holding tightly to Malvina’s dark hand!!
The couple burst into tears of joy and happiness.
Yvette scooped the little girl into her trembling
arms. With violet eyes once again burning
with life, the little girl said in a familiar
voice like the sound of tinkling glass: “Mama!”
With that, the couple’s joy seemed complete.
Though they urged her to, the old vodusi would
not enter the couple’s home, nor would
she allow Malvina to cross the threshold once
the restored Violette had been returned to
her parents. In fact, Malvina recalled how
the old woman’s gnarled hand dug into
her skinny little shoulder as if to prevent
her from even considering entering the home.
But the old woman took the cash that Robert
now happily forked over. With that, the couple
was left to their joy.
And joyful it was, at least for a time. Although,
when the servants learned of the child’s
return, they immediately recoiled from the
little girl. Loathe to leave the couple, and
not certain how the child was reanimated,
the loyal servants remained, but vowed cautiously
that at the first sign of trouble they would
have to leave. The mulatto nurse was the most
frightened of all the house servants, not
the least because the care of the child was
returned to her once “Violette”
had miraculously reappeared. Fear kept them
all in place: fear of what this little jewel
might now be capable of.
The house took on a dreamlike quality after
Violette returned. It was clear, even to the
most slow-minded of the servants, that the
master and his wife had obviously lost their
sanity. Not only this, but the once beautiful
and vibrant Violette was now somehow different;
something about her was never quite “right”
and none of the servants liked being in her
presence very long. Where they had previously
seen untainted innocence they now sensed a
brooding presence, something entirely “other”
had come to live with them.
It wasn’t long before the worst fears
and superstitions seemed to be coming true.
Deep inside the house, pattering footsteps
deep in the night troubled the servants; grunting
sounds or the sounds of furtive eating could
be heard in the darkness outside, but no one
had the nerve to investigate. And while all
this happened, Robert and Yvette seemed only
to see Violette, living in a perpetual dream
state, under the child’s spell.
First it was the little night creatures that
were found, dead, hidden (or so it seemed)
under the spreading low azalea branches or
covered in moss in the roots of trees. Some
looked as if they had been scaled and skinned
alive by claws; others were torn in half,
with parts missing. Another strange occurrence
was the disappearance of meat stock in the
smoke house and pantry. No fresh cut of meat
was safe, evidently, and although at first
the cook staff were puzzled they became outright
fearful when they observed marks in some of
the cured meat that looked as if it had been
gnawed upon by little HUMAN teeth…
And throughout this, though Robert and Yvette
seemed blissfully unaware of the change, the
servants watched in horror as the little girl
seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be
decomposing before their eyes. It did not
take much mental acuity at this point for
the servants to reason out what had happened:
Violette had been taken to the bokor vodusi,
the black magic workers, who instead of restoring
her to wholesome life had zombified her!
Now the servants knew they were trapped in
a horrible nightmare, and fearful for their
own lives they first determined to leave the
home. But it was the memory of the beautiful
little Violette, the vibrant happiness she
had brought to them all when she was alive,
that combined with their fierce loyalty to
her parents to keep them there. So it was
that they made a pact among themselves that
the strongest of them, when the opportunity
presented itself, would take the zombie child
from the home and kill it, or, if it could
not be killed, then bind it to keep it from
returning. But they knew they could not attempt
this without the aid of a powerful vodoun
patron.
It is said that they took their case to the
daughter of Marie Laveau, Mamzelle Marie,
and begged for her aid. Not surprisingly,
Mamzelle Marie was angered by what she saw
as a horrible act that went against the practices
of her mother’s sosyete and the vodoun
beliefs in the sanctity of life and death.
So angry was Mamzelle Marie, in fact, that
from that time until now the followers of
the true secret sosyete of the original Marie
and the followers of the old bokor vodusi
have been constantly at odds with each other.
On the night that the servants appealed to
her, Mamzelle Marie said to them: “For
Violette, I will give you strength to do this
thing. For Violette.”
Of all people it was the faithful mulatto
nurse who found the courage and the strength
to face the little creature that had taken
the place of her beloved Violette. Alone with
the zombie child in the grim nursery, the
mulatto woman was able to overcome her worst
fears and trap the horrible creature in a
bedsheet. Tying it tightly in knots and praying
in the Krayol language of vodoun, the nurse
rushed to a wagon that waited to take her
to a rendezvous with Mamzelle Marie herself.
When she arrived at the appointed place, the
nurse was surprised to find Mamzelle was not
alone: with her was the old vodusi woman who
had brought the zombified Violette home. Not
only this, Malvina LaTour stood by, a skinny,
shaking girl, struck silent by the fury in
Mamzelle Marie’s dark eyes.
Thinking at first that she had been betrayed,
the nurse was reluctant to turn over the kicking
bundle that contained the zombie baby. But
a look from Mamzelle Marie reassured her and
she handed the bundle over to the powerful
vodoun mambo. As soon as Mamzelle Marie took
hold of her, the zombie Violette burst into
a horrific tantrum, not unlike those she threw
in the days when she begged to be taken about
with her father. This tantrum, however, sounded
more like the ravings of a caged animal; there
were even marks from the zombie child’s
fingernails as she began to claw her way out.
Mamzelle Marie shouted a word of Command and
the tantrum stopped, then she turned to the
nurse. “Go home,” she told her,
“and perform the house cleansing ritual
that I taught you earlier. Turn your back
on this child immediately and forget her.
She is in my charge now.”
Violette the zombie child never did return
to the house of her parents, who, once she
had been removed, seemed to return as if from
a dream world; even their grieving had ceased.
The loyal servants never mentioned anything
about the horrible visitation of the zombie
child, nor did the nurse ever reveal what
she had done with it. A year and a day from
the moment the nurse relinquished the child
to Mamzelle Marie, the young couple was blessed
with another child: this time a son came to
live with Robert and Yvette.
What happened to the Little Violette the Zombie
Child? According to Malvina LaTour, who told
the tale while she yet lived, what is already
dead cannot be killed again, and such was
the anger of Mamzelle Marie that, it is said,
the old vodusi was made to take the zombie
child home to live with her. Unfortunately
for Malvina, this old woman was her aunt and
lived in one half of a double in the old Bywater
section near the Marigny while Malvina and
her family lived in the other half. The old
vodusi kept the zombie Violette confined,
but when the old woman died there was no trace
to be found of the child. No one ever knew
for certain, but most other vodusi and members
of the secret sosyetes assumed that the old
woman had finally found a way to destroy the
creature she had made.
Now the way I found out about this story is
weird and what I have related is really a
“backward retelling.” I have pieced
together the facts the best I can in an attempt
to explain an amazing series of events that
have plagued some friends of mine who now
reside in the very Bywater home that once
was the residence of Malvina LaTour’s
old aunt.
When they moved into the home, having bought
both sides, they took up residence in one
portion while renovating the other. Over the
years since the house had been built a series
of modifications had been undertaken to make
the home appear more modern, but now even
those changes are woefully out of date and
the new owners – Mark and Andy –
wanted to restore the entire house to its
former elegance.
I first heard of the house in a phone call
Mark made to me in Miami when they had first
moved in. My immediate feeling was that there
was something – a residual haunting
or possibly an entity – in the home
and that this would make itself known over
time.
After settling in, Andy was constantly complaining
about the sound of cats yowling – this
is what he thought he was hearing. He and
Mark would stand in the kitchen and listen
to what sounded like a cat trapped in the
other side, yowling to be let out. When they
would investigate, there was nothing found.
Nothing, that is, until one day, when Mark
was home alone working on the empty side scraping
the old plaster from the gabled ceiling of
the little bathroom. As he worked, he revealed
what appeared to be a small door; assuming
it went into the attic, Mark put some elbow
grease into it and by the time Andy returned
that evening they could both see the outline
of a little trap door.
It had been painted shut under the plaster
coating and had all the appearances of having
been sealed for generations. Working together
they were able to pry the little door open.
Needless to say, now they are sorry that they
did.
Peering into the darkness of the attic gable,
pushing aside the bones of dead pigeons and
rats, sorting through a rusty pile of chains
and tattered rags, they came upon what appeared
to be an old doll. It was the size of a young
child, but it appeared for all intents and
purposes to be a mummy doll wrapped in layers
of tattered cloth – sheets, curtains,
ropes, even lace and a kind of gauze around
the face. What caught their eyes though, even
in the dim light of the attic, was the dazzling
purple flash of a pair of amethyst earrings,
still brilliant – and still attached
– even after all the intervening years.
Something about the horrid, lifelike “doll”
terrified Andy and he insisted that the rickety
attic door remain nailed shut at all times.
Although Mark wanted to take the thing out
of it’s attic home, Andy was having
none of that and confessed later that he could
barely stand living in the other side of the
house knowing the little “creature”
was in the empty attic. He even considered
moving out at one point, when the confusion
of Hurricane Katrina came roaring into everyone’s
lives.
Mark and Andy were forced to evacuate their
home during the storm and in the chaos they
gave little thought to their next door “neighbor”
left alone in the shotgun double yet again.
Andy did confess that he thought about the
horrible “doll” quite often while
they were staying in a Little Rock area hotel,
but he and Mark never once discussed it.
When they were allowed to return to their
home after the storm they discovered minor
damage to their side and a collapsed Chinaberry
tree piercing the roof of the empty side.
Both men agree that their hearts fell when
they saw this and not just because of the
horror of insurance claims and FEMA paperwork.
It was as if, they said, they “knew”
the broken roof meant trouble.
Reluctantly, Mark held the ladder while Andy
bravely went to the little attic door and,
with a feeble flashlight, looked inside.
I cannot describe the horror and dismay in
their voices when they called me in Miami
later that night to tell me that the horrible,
mummified “doll” was nowhere to
be found and that there was nothing in the
attic but “a bunch of rags and some
bird bones!”
Although I tried hard to console both men,
Mark’s angry cry of “That thing
is LOOSE!” haunted me so badly that
I could not sleep that night. Intuitively
I knew, he is right. Not only that, once we
were able to ascertain the actual nature of
the “doll” and identify it by
working backward through the maze of legend
and oral tradition in the area, a pervading
gloom fell over us all.
I can think of nothing now except the words
of Voodoo Queen Malvina LaTour saying, “You
can’t kill what’s already dead!”
Where, I wondered, in all of Katrina-ravaged
New Orleans would such a thing go? Where would
it hide now that the whole landscape was as
surreal as the world it was called back from?
I shudder to think, to this day, that somewhere,
in the tattered remains of Old New Orleans,
Little Violette the Zombie Child is bewitching
someone, even now, with violet eyes to –
quite literally – die for!
Mickey of Miami
Miami, Florida
April 5, 2006
