What is a gri gri?

[Tom Dunlap]

On Saturday I was in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The rain was coming down hard so it was a day to spend inside at the Louisana State Museum on Jackson Square.

On one of the placards in the museum I found this:

Slaves arriving Louisiana from Africa and the Caribbean had extensive knowledge of herbs, poisons, and the creation of charms and amulets of support and power. Even today New Orleanians employ several of these concoctions and their African-origin names, including ‘gri-gri’ and ‘wanga’.

A charm intended to harm others, gri-gri comes from the Mande word ‘gerregerys’. Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, a Frenchman who lived in Louisiana from 1718-1734, noted that the slaves ‘are very superstitious and attached their prejudices and to charms which they call ‘gris-gris’, “ and in 1773 a Mandinga slave slew an alligator to make a gri-gri with which he intended to kill his master. He substituted American alligator for what would have been more familiar to him-African crocodile.

 

[frans]

Tom,
You made me look at my gri-gri in a whole new way!
Yesterday my shoe lace broke first thing in the morning, in the afternoon, the hyd. pump on my chipper went out.
Am I superstitious? You bet!

Maybe I will use my gri-gri as an ornament to hang on my tree...

 

[Jamin_Mayer]

Hmm. Interesting facts! Who would 'a thunk it?

 

[Tom Dunlap]

I've stopped in a couple of voodoo shops in The Quarter. They sell gri gri pouches. They're little leather pouches large enough for a couple of grapes that hang around the neck. Every time I see them I think of hanging a Petzl GG around my neck with some cord. What kind of luck would I need not to have it swing around and nock out some teeth

 

[RyanCafferky]

I've never hung my Gri Gri around my neck but I've found that if I leave it hanging on my bridge while I'm ascending it misses my teeth but hits somewhere just as tender.