"CONGO . . . CONGO SQUARE,
THE SPIRITS ARE THERE."
Luther Gray
Bamboula 2000
Percussion Inc.
Congo Square in New Orleans is a place of earth and trees and grass.
Congo Square in New Orleans is a Spirit of Grace that looks out through the earth and trees and grass.
The voice of old squares Spirits will find your ear if you stand upon the earth of Congo Square and listen carefully .
"Oh, Lord . . . Here I am four blocks square and I feel as if I'm carrying the weight of the world on my back. Time is heavy, it weighs me down. Time is like a sack slung over my back. A big ol' sack full of people and their stories. Sometimes it seems as if the only way I can lighten my load is to take a story out of the sack and tell it . . . opens some room up in that sack. Lightens the load a bit. When someone else hears the story its like they carry the load along with me and a shared load is a lighter load."
"Men and women walk on my surface . . . they call me things and they tell me things. They called me la Place Publique, they called me Place du Cirque, and they called me Place des Negres.
At one time they called me Congo Square. Now that's the name I'll use to tell this story."
(ART. . . DRAWING)
Introduction Chapter 2 Up to Voodoo Section Black Moon Main