We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Malika Hadley Freydberg a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Malika, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The idea for the tour company was a direct offshoot of working for two of the biggest companies in New Orleans as a walking tour guide. In a city that is demographically over 60% African American, the tour guide population is overwhelmingly predominantly Caucasian, resulting in the majority of the Voodoo/Vodou tours being led by non-initiates. In addition to the information being shared about this African Traditional Religion being somewhat suspect as it was not coming from people with firsthand knowledge, these are people who live largely outside of African American culture.
I was used to being one of the top guides in any company I worked for, and after getting my initiations in both Nigeria in Isese, and finally as a High Priestess in Louisiana Plantation Voodoo/Vodou, it became a selling point for those same companies. However, there were times where they would try to control what I could or could not say about my own religion and culture, and finally they submitted a script they wanted me to read about Vodou that was in direct opposition to everything I had told them was true about the path.
Finally, I was told by a former supervisor that I needed to come up with a more “balanced perspective” on slavery (I’m trying not to cackle as I write this), and that coupled with a new dress code policy that informed us “dreadlocks are permitted, if they are clean and orderly”, it was time to go.
Realizing that all of the biggest companies in New Orleans are run solely by caucasians, it became clear that, in order to have full autonomy over my tour content and delivery, I would have to be the boss. I partnered with High Priestess Eshè, and we founded and registered Anansi’s Daughters, LLC. We are a Black woman LGBTQ+ owned and run company, and it’s been really beautiful to see the number of people across racial and cultural lines who seek us out for that very reason; they want to hear the history that is often left out of the tours offered in New Orleans. And we are so excited they’ve found us.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am a retired high school educator with a master’s in Music Education, focus in Ethnomusicology. I am also a retired national slam poet, which definitely helps with the cadence of my tours. I got my first tour guide job from submitting a video of myself competing with a spoken word piece I had written about New Orleans.
I was also raised in an exceptionally Afrocentric household, with some knowledge of the ATRs (African Traditional Religions). I got my first divination to find out what Orisha (Spirit) governed my path when I was 23, received my first initiation in 2013 as my hand of Ifa, 2019 in Ibadan, Nigeria, I received my full Olorisha initiation as a devotee of Isese and the Orisha Oya Yansa specifically, and finally, New Orleans 2021, I finished my third and final level of initiation as a High Priestess of Louisiana Plantation Vodou.
Because our traditions were historically taught by oral/aural means, there is very little information published on our traditions that is trustworthy, as the source is almost always coming from someone outside the community. In order to get solid information, you need to be hearing from an initiate, and that’s what our company offers.
In addition, for people who are looking to hear about Black history from Black people, they know when booking with us that their tour guide is going to be BIPOC. For most tour companies in New Orleans (of which there are over 411), I’m used to seeing maybe 5 BIPOC tour guides out of roughly every 25, if that. It’s a crap shoot whether you’ll get a BIPOC guide in New Orleans, and the odds of it are considerably low.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn the idea that Western written forms of research were more dependable than oral tradition. Most of us were taught that oral tradition is a game of telephone: by the time it gets to your ears, it’s so far removed from the original story that it’s virtually unrecognizable. Then I had my initiation in Ibadan, Nigeria, followed by my initiation in Louisiana Plantation Vodou. Initiations are always closed door practices, meaning only the people present know for certain what happened during the process.
I was pleasantly surprised to the point of tears that my initiation in Louisiana Plantation Vodou was so incredibly close to the initiation I received in Nigeria. It was proof that we didn’t lose nearly as much. As we’ve been led to believe. What’s more, upon reading peer-reviewed articles on some of our traditions, it became clear the scholars in question were observing rituals from the outside, then connecting it with symbology from their own culture, often resulting in wild misconceptions about our practices and the reasons behind them.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

I met my cofounder and business partner High Priestess Eshè when she was hired by the same big tour company where I began in New Orleans. I was one of the guides that trained her, and not only was I excited that this company made up of 14 or so guides now had 3 Black guides, but her wisdom and talent as a writer and storyteller were off the charts. She actually moved out of the state for a while, came back, and we decided to go into business together.
We were both still working for bigger companies as we worked to get our own off the ground, and it was really important having that support from one another when we got discouraged. We reminded each other that leaving the companies we were with to go to a different company while we built our own was going to inevitably result in the same obstacles and frustration we had encountered at the previous companies; the only answer was to work for ourselves. And now we do.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: @anansisdaughters
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anansisdaughters/

Image Credits

All photos I have the rights to.