He called himself “Prince
Ke’eyama” and he was
acknowledged far and wide as the
One True King of New Orleans Voodoo,
but most locals knew him only as
“The Chicken Man.”
He was born Frank Staten in 1937
to a family of Haitian descent who
brought him to New Orleans when
he was still an infant. Young Frank
grew up in the household of his
grandfather, a practicing Baptist
minister who took over the early
education of his grandson teaching
him a deep love and respect of the
Holy Bible, Almighty God, and Jesus
Christ. But at the age of nine,
young Frank’s grandfather
sat him down and told him something
that changed his life forever.
“You have the power,”
he said. “God has given you
the power to help people. God shows
you things about people you have
no other way of knowing. You have
magic powers. You have the power
to heal.”
This revelation was soon followed
by another, almost as amazing, when
the young boy’s grandmother
revealed to him for the first time
the truth of his royal descent.
He had come from a great line of
powerful kings, she told him, and
as he learned more about being a
vessel for the power of God, he
would also pick up the mantle of
this legacy and wear it all his
life.
From that moment Frank was no longer
called by his given name. His name
was revealed to him: He would be
Prince Ke’eyama.
Prince’s grandmother taught
him about the magic power of herbs;
she revealed to him ancient secrets
of Haitian Voodoo that had originated
in the native slave homeland of
Africa and how to use them to help
others.
With the firm guidance of his grandparents
Prince grew more powerful every
day. He began to follow a strict
diet that he claimed was revealed
to him during through meditation
and prayer. He was shown, he said,
that the common chicken was his
most powerful totem avenue; as instructed,
Prince made chicken a part of his
daily diet. Adhering to the strictures
revealed to him, Prince soon learned
that he could control every aspect
of his physical body. He would eat
chicken every day, but he found
he could also chew and swallow glass
unharmed, and that he could eat
fire.
As a young man, Prince traveled
widely, visiting communities in
other states where the ancient voodoo
beliefs were practiced. He also
returned to Haiti several times
where his powers were increased
and his reputation similarly grew.
During the turbulent years of the
early 1970’s, Prince Ke’eyama
returned to New Orleans and settled
there. He observed the chaos all
around him and immediately knew
the cause: so many around him were
in trouble with drugs, he realized
he had found his calling and began
to use all his powers to help these
desperate individuals.
Prince Ke’eyama determined
that the best way to gain their
trust and attract their attention
was to create a sensation of himself:
this is when The Chicken Man was
born.
Prince fine-tuned a nightclub act
that he had performed during his
years on the road. The act was designed
to amaze as well as to win believers
to the absolute power of God working
through Prince and his mastery of
the voodoo arts.
He first began performing his act
at different locations throughout
the French Quarter, and he caused
a sensation (just as he wished)
wherever he went. In a show that
included tribal dancing, magical
basics, and fire-eating, the Prince,
as Chicken Man, held the audience
transfixed. The climax of each show
came when Prince brought a live
chicken onstage and, in front of
gasping crowds, bit the bird’s
head off and drank it’s blood,
using the neck as a huge straw.
Once this was done, Prince then
bit through the rib cage of the
dead fowl and would eat the chicken
raw.
Needless to say, many people were
reviled by this act, but an equal
amount came to understand that what
appeared to be The Chicken Man eating
a raw chicken really was an act
of sacrifice on the part of Prince
Ke’eyama on behalf of everyone
there. When, after the shows, more
and more people began to seek him
out for aid and counseling, Prince
knew the message was getting across.
After gaining fame with his admittedly
strange nightclub act, Prince was
able to open a venue of his own.
Called “Chicken Man’s
House of Voodoo,” the shop
was located in the 700 block of
Bourbon Street where it immediately
became a landmark among the local
voodoo community. When Prince Ke’eyama
married, his wife Bobby Ke’eyama,
known as The Chicken Woman, would
manage the shop leaving The Chicken
Man free to seek out and help those
who needed him among the French
Quarter crowds.
He soon became a familiar figure
around the Quarter selling his gris-gris
bags and incense, doing readings
for next to nothing or sometimes
free, if the person he chose to
read had no cash on them. To Prince,
this was his ministry and the streets
were full of his congregation. And
in those days you had to be blind
to miss him: broad smile, dread
hair, feathers and ribbons and braids
hanging, sometimes wearing his signature
straw hat, always carrying his powerful
staff.
“He was like a ‘pick-a-pocket’
clown at a school fair,” says
Armando, a student of Chicken Man
who is today among his most devoted
believers. “You would walk
up and be able to reach into any
of his pockets and pull out a prize.
Sometimes you got a little voodoo
doll, sometimes you got a gris-gris
bag or a chicken claw or some ju-ju
dust. You always got something good,
though. That’s just the way
he was.”
Chicken Man seemed to instinctively
read a person, even from a distance,
and by the time he zeroed in on
someone, he had already decided
upon just the right “prescription”
in his mind. That’s how most
people met the Chicken Man; he singled
them out, rather than the other
way around.
Another student of voodoo and a
one-time pupil of the Chicken Man
laughs when he recalls seeing him
in the early morning hours on Bourbon
and Toulouse Streets. “He
would spy me and as soon as he saw
me he would start to sing that old
song, ‘Make your own kind
of magic! Sing your own special
song!” This was alluding,
he said, to the Chicken Man’s
firm belief that we each can create
our own kind of magic, with or without
following a set of rituals or rules.
“To Chicken Man, everything
and everyone was magic.”
As often happens with people of
great goodwill and power, a huge
following grew up around The Chicken
Man in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
People packed into his (increasingly
rare) stage shows and constantly
sought him out for guidance and
help. A strange backlash reaction
occurred in the thriving voodoo
community, however, which claimed
The Chicken Man was nothing more
than a “showman,” a
“vaudeville magician,”
a “geek.” Although he
was practically worshipped by many
and was accepted as a truly powerful
voodoo priest by those practicing
“true” voodoo –
most prominently Lady Bianca –
the “popular” voodoo
practitioners treated him as an
outsider.
“That was plain old jealousy!”
Armando says about those detractors.
“They were jealous of his
power and his people! They’d
say, ‘look how hard we work
at this,’ and still the people
came to see The Chicken Man first
of all. That’s because his
voodoo was true voodoo!”
Prince Ke’eyama, The Chicken
Man, died in December 1998. His
ashes were donated to the Voodoo
Spiritual Temple where they are
kept enshrined by Sister Miriam
Chamani.
It is largely because of this early
ostracizing by the popular vodusi
of the time that a secret following
soon began to materialize around
Prince Ke’eyama: called The
Cult of the Chicken Man, this following
became one of the largest secret
sosyetes since that founded by Voodoo
Queen Marie Laveau in her lifetime,
and like Laveau’s sosyete,
The Cult of the Chicken Man still
endures today. Among devotees, one
man could claim most of the credit
for keeping the faith: that man
is Armando, The Chicken Man priest.
Armando, a Cuban orphan, was taken
in by Prince Ke’eyama who,
together with his wife Bobby, raised
the young refugee. Now 48, Armando
is a practicing voodoo priest who
claims to be the rightful heir of
the Chicken Man legacy.
“He took me in, raised me,”
Armando says. “He wanted me
when no one else did. Into his world,
he brought me step by step, becoming
my blessed Padreno – my teacher
and protector.”
Armando’s tiny apartment on
the edge of the French Quarter is
dominated by the continuing presence
of the man he once called “father.”
A large portrait of The Chicken
Man graces a giant altar dedicated
to his memory. The Chicken Man looks
out from under the brim of his familiar
straw hat, perpetually smiling down
on the work Armando is doing in
his name. The altar is decorated
in red and white silk and accented
with tassels of gold and beading.
Red and white candles are constantly
burning among the many objects of
devotion placed there daily by Armando
and the Chicken Man’s followers.
Most touching are the tiny straw
hats – doll’s hats,
actually – that followers
have left in memory of a man whom
they held in the highest regard.
Offerings of food and drink, especially
rum, intermingle with bottles of
Florida Water, cigars, and what
is probably hundreds of chicken
effigies of all sorts – little
porcelain chickens, plaster and
chalk, some carved of wood, some
store bought – all placed
lovingly by Armando in honor of
this famous man.
Armando claims that The Chicken
Man passed on not only his legacy
but his great power to his chosen
priest, and since the Prince’s
death, Armando has been the guiding
force behind the old sosyete. Unlike
his predecessor, however, Armando
does not believe in public performances
of voodoo. Some associates of this
reigning voodoo priest believe this
is mostly because he does not want
to share the rituals and power passed
on by The Chicken Man with a voodoo
community that still looks on this
great man of power as a “circus
sideshow.”
“He once told me that he didn’t
mind being called a sham and a fool,”
Armando says. “He didn’t
mind being so put down in the public
eye, because he knew he had the
belief of the people that mattered
to him, and he knew he was truly
helping people every day. That is
more than most people can claim,
to say that they have helped at
least one person every day they
are alive.
Prince Ke’eyama, it seems,
was content to be the butt of jokes
and laughter. “He said to
me, “After all, what do I
care? I can be a fool to the public
because they know [the vodusi] I
am the True King of Voodoo in private,’”
said Armando.
“I only come forward now to
see that the true story of Chicken
Man is told,” he concludes,
“Especially now that he is
being seen by so many people all
over the City.”*
Stories, lies and fabrications abound
about The Chicken Man. Many of them
were fabricated by him personally,
many more were created by others
jealous of his popularity and his
craft. His followers, however, know
the true Prince behind the public
image, and they know that his voodoo
was the real thing. It will stand
the test of time.
Voodoo, claims of grandeur, decadent
New Orleans folk tale: all this
builds a man, a modern legend. The
Chicken Man is all this, and so
much more.
His Voodoo legacy lives
on in New Orleans. Truth, fiction, Voodoo?
A child of Xango, Chickenmans
original statue on a small New Orleans Voodoo
altar