St. John’s Eve
The Feast of St. John coincides with the June solstice also referred to as Midsummers. The Christian holy day is fixed at June 24, but, in the old days, festivities were celebrated the night before, on St. John’s Eve.
Or at least that is when Marie Laveau celebrated it, she would attract a large crowd of blacks and whites down to Lake Ponchartrain where she performed her healing ceremony or headwashing. In the same spirit, Sally Ann Glassman, the new reigning Vodou queen, performs the ceremony right here in Faubourg St John on the Magnolia Bridge every June 23rd.
While the original celebration was done to protect the crops, after Katrina the ceremony became more linked to warding off hurricanes as June 1st marks the beginning of hurricane season down here in the Gulf South.
