Voodoo

Voodoo , today practiced by around fifteen percent of the city's population, was brought to New Orleans by African slaves via the French colonies of the Caribbean, where tribal beliefs were mixed up with Catholicism to create a cult based on spirit-worship. French, and later, Spanish authorities tried to suppress the religion (voodoo-worshipers had played an active role in the organization of slave revolts in Haiti), but it continued to flourish among the city's black population. Under American rule, the weekly slave gatherings at Congo Square (in what is now Louis Armstrong Park), which included ritual ceremonies, turned into a tourist attraction for whites, fueled by sensationalized reports of hypnotized white women dancing naked.

Unlike in the West Indies, where the cult was dominated by male priests, New Orleans had many voodoo priestesses. The most famous was Marie Laveau , a hairdresser of African, white and Native American blood. Using shrewd marketing sense and inside knowledge of the lives of her clients, she was in high demand for her gris-gris - spells or potions - which she prepared for wealthy Creoles and Americans, as well as Africans. Laveau died in 1881, after which another Marie, believed to be her daughter, continued to practice under her name. The legend of both Maries lives on, and their tombs are popular tourist attractions.

Today voodoo is big business in New Orleans, with numerous gift shops selling ersatz gris-gris - pouches carried for good luck, filled with amulets, charms and herbs - and exotic voodoo dolls; these can be fun, but if you're interested in the reality, you'd do better to head to the Voodoo Spiritual Temple , 828 N Rampart St (daily 10am-8pm; tel 504/522-9627), which holds an open service on Thursday evening and offers tours and consultations. Visitors are asked to make a donation.

The Historic Voodoo Museum , 724 Dumaine St (daily 10am-8pm; $7), is a ragbag collection of ceremonial objects, paintings and gris-gris . Its aim, to debunk the myths that surround this misunderstood religion, is undermined somewhat by the self-consciously spooky atmosphere, not to mention its resident 12ft python, crumbling rat heads and desiccated bats. The gift shop sells gris-gris and voodoo dolls, while the gallery features more expensive folk art. Ask about their readings, rituals and city tours.

The Cities of the Dead

There is no architecture in New Orleans, except in the cemeteries ?
- Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

So much of New Orleans is at, or below, sea level that early settlers who buried their dead - and there were many of them - found that during the frequent flooding great waves of moldy coffins would float to the surface of the sodden earth. Eventually, graves began to be placed, Spanish-style, in above-ground brick and stucco vaults, surrounded by small fences. These cemeteries grew to resemble cities, laid out in "streets"; today, as the tombs crumble away amid the overgrown foliage, they have become atmospheric in the extreme. The creepiness isn't totally imaginary, either - though armed muggers, rather than ghosts, are the danger these days. You should never venture here alone. Nearly all the city tours include a trip around one of the graveyards; some specialize in them.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 , Washington Ave and Prytania. Built in 1833, by 1852 - when 2000 yellow fever victims were buried here - the Garden District cemetery was filled to capacity. Today it is an eerie place, with many tombs sinking into the ground, and some of them slowly opening in the shadow of tangled trees. It's no surprise that all this decaying grandeur should capture the imagination of local author Anne Rice, who has used the place in many of her books - she even staged a mock funeral here, to launch publication of Memnoch the Devil ; the corpse was herself, wearing an antique wedding dress, in an open coffin carried by pall bearers.

St Louis Cemetery No. 1 , 400 Basin St between Conti and St Louis. The oldest City of the Dead, dating from 1789, this small graveyard is full of crooked mausolea jutting into narrow pathways. On the fringes of the Quarter, it is a regular stop on the tour bus circuit, and you will invariably come across a crowd by the tomb of "voodoo queen" Marie Laveau , graffitied with brick-dust crosses. They're usually being told how if you knock on the slab and mark a cross, her spirit will grant you any favor. The family who own it have asked that this bogus tradition should stop, not least because people are taking chunks of brick from other tombs to make the crosses. Voodooists - responsible for the candles, plastic flowers and rum bottles surrounding the plot - deplore the practice, too, regarding it as a desecration that chases Laveau's spirit away.

St Louis Cemetery No. 2 , 200 N Claiborne Ave between Iberville and St Louis. One of the most desolate Cities of the Dead, hemmed in between a Tremé housing project and the interstate. Built in 1823, it's a prime example of local cemetery design, with a dead-straight center aisle lined with grandiose Greek Revival mausolea. A second Marie Laveau, thought to be the Marie Laveau's daughter, has a tomb here, also daubed with red-chalk crosses.

St Louis Cemetery No. 3 , 3421 Esplanade Ave, Mid-City. A peaceful burial ground, built in 1856 on the site of a leper colony, St Louis No. 3 is mostly used by religious orders; all the priests of the diocese are buried here, and fragile angels balance on top of the tombs.

A Haunted House

The striking French Empire LaLaurie Home , at 1140 Royal St on the corner with Gov Nicholls, is New Orleans' most famous haunted house (not open to the public). In the nineteenth century it belonged to the LaLauries, a doctor and his socialite wife Delphine, who, although seen wielding a whip as she chased a slave girl through the house to the roof, was merely fined when the child fell to her death. Whispers about the couple's cruelty were horribly verified when neighbors rushed in after a fire in 1834 - believed to have been started intentionally by the shackled cook - to find seven emaciated slaves locked in the attic. There they saw men, women and children choked by neck braces, some with broken limbs; one had a worm-filled hole gouged out of his cheek. The doctor's protestation that this torture chamber was, in fact, an "experiment," met with vitriol; the next day the pair escaped the baying mob outside their home, and fled to France. Since then, many claim to have heard ghostly moans from the building at night; some say they have seen a little girl stumble across the curved balcony beneath the roof.

Tours
New Orleans' image as a Gothic, vampire-stalked city has really taken off in recent years, and the choice of tours promising magic, voodoo, vampires and ghosts has become dizzying. Among the high-camp, the overpriced and the plain silly, there are, nonetheless, a few worth joining. Historic New Orleans Walking Tours (tel 504/947-2120) will lead you to St Louis Cemetery No. 1, Congo Square, Marie Laveau's home, and a voodoo temple; meet at Café Beignet , 334 Royal St (Mon-Sat 10am & 1pm, Sun 10am; 2hr; $15; no reservations; arrive 15min before the tour is due to begin). Save Our Cemeteries (tel 504/525-3377; call for meeting points and to reserve) is a nonprofit restoration organization leading fascinating tours of Lafayette No. 1 (Mon, Wed & Fri 10.30am; 1hr; $6) and St Louis No. 1 (Sun 10am; 1hr 30min; $12). Call for meeting points and to reserve. Finally, if you're less worried about authenticity and more concerned with whooping it up, consider the New Orleans Ghost and Vampire Tour , complete with magic tricks and "psychic demonstrations." Ghost tours leave from Washington Artillery Park, across Decatur St from Jackson Square (daily 8pm; around 2hr; $15), while for the cemeteries you should meet at CC's Coffee House on Royal and St Philip in the Quarter (Mon-Sat noon, Sun 10.30am; around 2hr; $15). No reservations are needed