New Orleans Earthworm Parade

An earthworm has six hearts, and, if you cut an earthworm it will bleed red, the same as when you cut your own finger.  What does this have to do with the New Orleans earthworm parade?  Okay, I'll tell you:

Most city people don't know that earthworms bleed red.  To the untrained eye, worm blood is indistinguishable from human blood. The first time you see it, it's kind of creepy.  The worm won't be thrilled to discover it, either.

There's a story that makes the rounds every October about the great New Orleans earthworm parade. Some people call it a fantasy that someone with DTs saw in a fever dream one October night and the story grew legs, so to speak.  New Orleans is a city full of parades. 

The earthworm parade story goes that all the streetlights on Ursulines Avenue between North Claiborne Avenue and North Broad Avenue went out all the same time one October night.  It might have been in 1973 or 1974, maybe in 1975.  It wasn't any later than 1975 because by 1976 the oak tree on the corner of North Galvez and Ursulines Avenue had been cut down.  It was blighted with termites.

There were more than one witness but they all had something in common.  They had all gone to a very popular candle shop on North Broad Avenue, not the one you're thinking of, for a earthworm blood mojo bag and they were wearing those mojo bags around their necks.

In New Orleans voodoo, earthworm blood is a potent cure for a variety of ailments.  It is used to cure scrofula, grippe, bloody flux, syphilis, turtle pox, a broken heart, impure thoughts, impotence, itchy palms, itchy feet, bed bug bites, melancholy and distemper.  A special mojo bag is prepared by cutting an earthworm in half and putting it in a little cloth bag with a mixture of herbs decreed by what ailment is meant to be relieved.  You wear the bag on a cord around your neck, usually with the bag at heart level.  People with the above listed conditions wear earthworm blood mojo bags all the time.  Off the top of my head I can think of four people wearing one right now.  I'm not one of them.

Everyone who was out on Ursulines Avenue when the lights went out that night was wearing an earthworm blood mojo bag.  There was a scrofula outbreak going through the neighborhood at the time.  

Everyone who was out on Ursulines Avenue when the lights went out that night saw the earthworm parade.  

The earthworms weren't ghosts nor were they decapitated.  There was no blood anywhere visible.  The earthworms were jolly.  The were upright, bouncily bounding along on their tails up Ursulines Avenue toward the lake.  The earthworms formed a single file line marching up Ursulines Avenue.  Boing, boing, boing.  There wasn't a brass band but there was some kind of ineffable music in the air.   Everyone could hear it though everyone described it differently.

If you dig between the air and the water table in New Orleans you will find that the city is home to more earthworms than people.  Ask any tenured Tulane University vermeologist.  That's a lot of hearts.  

New Orleans has miles and miles of heart.  That was proven that night when the earthworms paraded up Ursulines Avenue.  That New Orleans earthworm parade is one for the history books.  If only someone would write a book like that.

I'll bet you see an earthworm parade of your own before you read about this one in any book.  That's the way things are in New Orleans.  It is a city of stories that nobody knows.

And now a word from our sponsor:  If you don't know it by now, La Belle Esplanade is consistently ranked the #1 place to stay in New Orleans.  How consistently?  #1 on TripAdvisor every month since April 2014.  That's pretty consistent.  

If you are going to visit New Orleans, we hope you'll consider La Belle Esplanade.  Visit New Orleans like you belong here.  Visit New Orleans in a New Orleans state of mind.  La Belle has a very good blog, too.  Check it out!