Mardi Gras Indians

Mardi Gras Indians at Algiers Riverfest New Orleans 2009 showing their beadwork

The Mardi Gras Indians (also known as Black Masking Indians or Black Maskers) are African American carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, known for their elaborate suits and participation in Mardi Gras. The Mardi Gras Indians subculture emerged during the era of slavery in Louisiana from Native American, West African, and Afro-Caribbean cultural practices. The Mardi Gras Indians' tradition is considered part of the African diasporan decorative aesthetic, and is an African-American art form.

Participants call their krewes "tribes" (or "gangs"), which should not be confused with Native American tribes. Each tribe takes its name from the streets used by their gang. There are more than 40 active tribes, which range in size from half a dozen to several dozen members. Groups are largely independent, but a pair of umbrella organizations loosely coordinates the Uptown Indians and the Downtown Indians. Their suits are displayed in museums in Louisiana and the Smithsonian. The complex designs of these suits are unique to the Mardi Gras Indian artistic community.

The Mardi Gras Indian aesthetic serves as an expression of their culture, religion and spirituality. The tradition of "masking" derives from the West African Masquerade ceremony. Some Mardi Gras Indians mask as the Native American allies who shielded them during slavery; others mask as orisha spirits from the Yoruba religion, or as spirits of the dead, such as the Skull and Bones gangs. Mardi Gras Indians' suits (regalia) and performances provide commentary on social justice issues, political liberation, and transformation. Their ceremonial purposes include healing, protection from the unknown, and communion with the spirits.

In addition to Mardi Gras Day, many of the tribes also parade on Saint Joseph's Day (March 19) and the Sunday nearest to Saint Joseph's Day ("Super Sunday"). Traditionally, these were the only times Mardi Gras Indians were seen in public in full regalia. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival began the practice of hiring tribes to appear at the Festival as well. In recent years, it has become more common to see Mardi Gras Indians at other festivals and parades in the city. According to Joyce Marie Jackson of Tulane University, the Mardi Gras Indians' fusion of American Indian and West African motifs and music creates "a folk ritual and street theater unique to New Orleans".

History

See also: Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama

See also: Gert Town, New Orleans

Dancing in Congo Square, 1886

Mardi Gras Indians have been practicing their traditions in New Orleans since at least the 18th century. The colony of New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, on land inhabited by Chitimacha Tribe, and within the first decade 5,000 enslaved Africans were trafficked to the colony. The West-Central African ethnic groups taken to Louisiana during the transatlantic slave trade were Bambara, Gambian, Akan, Fon, Yoruba, and Kongolese peoples. From 1719 to 1743, almost 30 percent of African people imported to New Orleans came from Ouidah, a port in Dahomey on the Bight of Benin. The largest group came from Senegambia. These ethnic groups influenced the culture of Louisiana in food, music, language, religion, and decorative aesthetics. French slaveholders allowed enslaved and free Black people to congregate on Sunday afternoons at Congo Square, where they performed music and religious practices.

New Orleans is known for its Creole heritage, with traditions coming from Native Americans, Africans, and Europeans. A mixed-race population of free people of color contributed to the history and culture of Mardi Gras in the city. The culture of enslaved Africans fused with Afro-Caribbean, Native American and European cultures that syncretized at Congo Square and was practiced during Mardi Gras. The Mardi Gras Indian tradition developed from early encounters between the region’s Indigenous (likely Chitimacha) and Black communities. Most of the enslaved people in Louisiana were Black, but 20% of enslaved people were either Native or mixed-race Afro-Indigenous people before abolition.

Black–Indigenous alliances

New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians, 1915

Indigenous peoples of Louisiana helped to free some of the Africans from slavery and hid them in their villages, where they taught them how to survive off the land where the freedom seekers lived in maroon camps. New Orleans was surrounded by swamps, bayous, and rivers resulting in a number of maroon settlements. In Louisiana, the Underground Railroad for the enslaved went south to maroon camps because the northern free territories and Canada were too far. These maroon camps attacked whites, stole cattle from nearby farms for food, and freed other enslaved people, and freedom seekers escaped and lived with other maroons. The maroons lived in huts and grew their own food of corn, squash, rice, and herbs. African culture thrived in maroon communities, and some were located near Native American villages. Native Americans helped maroons and freedom seekers by providing food and weapons to defend themselves from whites and slave catchers.

In colonial Louisiana, there was a settlement known as Natanapalle of armed freedom seekers and Indigenous peoples. In such spaces, freed and escaped African slaves adapted some of the culture of Native Americans. Whites in Louisiana feared an alliance of Africans and Indigenous people growing in the swamps and bayous.

In 1729, 280 enslaved Africans joined forces with Natchez people during the "Natchez Revolt". The revolt aimed to prevent French colonists from taking Natchez land for tobacco production. During the revolt, the Natchez killed almost all of the 150 Frenchmen at Fort Rosalie, and only about 20 managed to escape, some fleeing to New Orleans. The Natchez spared the enslaved Africans; many were locked inside a house on the bluff, guarded by several warriors, from where they could see the events. Some scholars suggest the Natchez spared the enslaved Africans due to a general sense of affinity between the Natchez and the Africans; some slaves even joined the Natchez, while others took the chance to escape to freedom.

The first Mardi Gras

"A Band of Mardi Gras Indians" - New Orleans 1903

The first recorded slave dances on plantations in Louisiana were recorded by the French in 1732. Archival records documented the first enslaved Africans apparently dressing as Indigenous people in a celebratory dance called Mardi Gras in 1746. In 1771, free men of color held Mardi Gras in maroon camps and in the city's back areas. Some of these men wore their masks to balls, causing the Spanish administration to grant "a prohibition of black persons from being masked, wearing feathers, and attending nightballs. This forced them to dress and roam only in the black neighborhoods and Congo Square." Author and photographer Michael P. Smith quotes Brassea and stating: "By 1781, under Spanish rule, the attorney general warned the City Commission of problems arising from 'a great number of free negroes and slaves who, with the pretext of the Carnival season, mask and mix in bands passing through the streets looking for the dance-halls.'" In 1804 and 1813, a German American and Swiss traveler saw Black men dressed in oriental and Native American attire wearing Turkish turbans of various colors.

Spanish officials in the late 18th century increased immigration and trade in the lower Mississippi valley by granting French merchants permission to import enslaved people from Saint-Domingue and other Caribbean Islands. American merchants in New Orleans invested in capital by importing enslaved people from Jamaica and other colonies in the British West Indies. After the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the port of New Orleans was the center of the slave trade in the United States before the American Civil War. New Orleans received enslaved people from other southern states to supply the demand for enslaved labor on the sugar and cotton plantations. In addition, during and after the Haitian Revolution, enslavers fled the island of Hispaniola and brought their enslaved people with them to New Orleans.

In 1810, free and enslaved Haitian refugees from Cuba came to New Orleans; this wave of migration doubled the enslaved population and tripled the population of free people of color in the city. The port of New Orleans received immigrants from Cuba, Germany, Ireland, and other parts of the Caribbean. The carnival cultures from Haiti, Jamaica and other parts of the West Indies blended with festival traditions in free and enslaved Black American communities. The Caribbean influences included Jonkonnu, Rara, Gaga, Canboulet, and other influences brought from West Indian maroon settlements.

Exclusion and subversion

In 1857, The Pickwick Club, an all-white gentleman's club, formed the Mystick Krewe of Comus, a white-only carnival krewe. They were soon followed by similar all-white, men-only krewes across the city. These groups often wore black face and red face, and took part in public celebrations as well as private balls. Black people were initially forbidden from wearing masks during carnival; in response, groups of young Black men used "war paint" to hide their identities instead. After the state legislature allowed masking "from sunrise to sunset", Black people began masking according to the style of West African masquerade ceremonies.

By the 1880s, Becate Batiste, a young creole man of African, French and Choctaw heritage formed the Creole Wild West, in Seventh Ward. Others soon formed their own "tribes". Their visual style, though drawing from African and Indigenous traditions, served to satirize and invert the racist masquerades of white krewes. It also allowed Black people, whose African culture had been suppressed by slave laws and the Code Noir, to practice their traditions openly.

Hurricane Katrina

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed African-American neighborhoods in New Orleans. Tremé is considered to be the oldest Black neighborhood in America and during post-Katrina continues to experience gentrification. From the 18th and 19th centuries, free Black people owned businesses and mixed with Haitian immigrants at Tremé. It is estimated that Black people owned eighty percent of the neighborhood. After Hurricane Katrina passed through, over 1,000 Black households along Clairborne Avenue were wiped-out and replaced with 120 white households. According to research from author Shearon Roberts, the changing of racial demographics in post-Katrina affects the continuation of culture for some Black residents. Occupation by white residents of spaces that were once Black-owned and where Black masking and cultural traditions were perpetuated resulted in three consequences: "...economic loss through appropriation, increased forms of criminalization, and the rupturing of Black safe communal spaces." Black New Orleanians experience cultural intrusion and appropriation from outsiders that affects the meaning and history of their traditions.

Culture

In its early history, masking culture resembled the all-male West African secret masquerade societies practiced among the Igbo and Yoruba. Scholars Fehintola Mosadomi and Joyce M. Jackson noted similar ceremonial practices of the Egungun and Mardi Gras Indians; both are performed in the streets with music and folk rituals, have elaborate colorful costumes, and are male-dominated. Masking Indian culture is a rite of passage for Black men and provides manhood and comrade training. Women's role in the tradition was, historically, as embellishment. Over the years this tradition incorporated elements from the Caribbean and have women participation. Black women partake in this tradition to preserve the culture and tradition; they make colorful suits and join in the parades.

Africans in the diaspora have traditionally used masquerade carnivals to protest oppression. Black carnivals provide a space for African Americans to unite, free from exploitation by white Americans, and represent a rejection of white carnival norms. Author Nikesha Williams writes that for Black people, Mardi Gras is a cultural and a spiritual experience.

Mardi Gras Indians in 2007 play music using African drums and tambourines on "Super Sunday".

Mardi Gras Indian culture is a form of Black creative resistance to the white supremacy of colonialism. Black masking traditions in New Orleans are a combination of Caribbean and African folk art that was sustained by African Americans despite colonialism, slavery, Black Codes, and racism.

Spiritual and cultural celebrations

See also: Cha Wa

See also: Monk Boudreaux

See also: Spirit possession

Second line in New Orleans

The dances and songs of Mardi Gras Indians have spiritual meanings. Funerals in Black neighborhoods in New Orleans are attended by Mardi Gras Indians. Black Americans put on their suits and play Mardi Gras Indian jazz to celebrate the life of the person who died. These Mardi Gras Indian jazz funerals have intense drumming, dancing, and call-and-response. Although Black people in New Orleans masks as Native Americans their culture, drumming, and music is African with influences from European musical instruments. Mardi Gras Indians' culture is reflecting the culture of the Black diaspora. Similar funeral processions are scene in West African, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian communities. Black Masking Indians' street performances and festivals are called "second lines". The Haitian influences in second line street theater are the sequins, beads, and feathers that are sewn into the suits and flags. Mardi Gras Indians perform healing rituals during their street performances to unite and heal communities. Historian Richard Brent Turner says that Central African cultures from Bakongo peoples, Haitian carnivals, and Black American culture blended at Congo Square that are expressed in their regalia and music.

"Mardi-Gras" at Fort Liberté N. Haiti - Haitian immigrants influenced carnival and festival celebrations in New Orleans.

The Code Noir in French colonies banned all non-Catholic religions and required enslaved and free people to convert to Catholicism. Curator and author Paulette Richards suggests that masquerade performances in the Black Atlantic during and after slavery, in which African and Christian religious traditions were combined, were a way for African peoples in the Americas to continue honoring their ancestral spirits after colonial officials had banned Black people from practicing African religions. As an act of resistance, enslaved and free Africans in the Americas continued to practice their religions by singing, dancing, drumming, and wearing masks and costumes at carnival. As Black people continued to practice their traditional cultures, they also incorporated Native American elements, in turn creating the Black masking carnival traditions in the diaspora and in New Orleans. Many maskers describe masking as aiming "to enter the spirit world of possession". During jazz funerals, spirits control the bodies of the dancers so the spirit of the deceased can transition peacefully. During Mardi Gras, the masks symbolize spirituality and freedom.

Mardi Gras Indian Albert Lambreaux's identity transforms to "Big Chief" when he wears his suit. As Big Chief he becomes an authority in the community. This change of identity only occurs during Mardi Gras when Black maskers wear their regalia. A change in identity when masking and wearing suits during Mardi Gras is a continuation of Sub-Saharan African masking traditions where a person's identity changes when they mask. Masks are worn to invite the gods to possess the individual and take them to another plane of existence. Masking is a spiritual transformation for the wearer who becomes connected to ancestral spirits and receives spiritual messages to relay to the public. They become an authority figure guided by the spirit. Some Black masking Indians describe a "successful" masking experience as including "a sensation of being possessed". Masking Indian Chief Zulu says: "It's an African tradition. Once you put a mask on, you're not a person any more. You become the energy or entity of what it is you're masking." Some scholars define Mardi Gras Indian culture as a spiritual secret society, a mutual-aid organization, and a social club.

Louisiana Voodoo beliefs and rituals are intertwined with Black Mardi Gras masking traditions.

Before a Mardi Gras Indian observance begins a prayer or chant is said in Louisiana Creole. The song Madi cu defio, en dans day is sung; it is a corruption of a Louisiana Voodoo Creole song, M'alle couri dans deser, that is also associated with Calinda dance. During the slave trade period, the Calinda dance was brought to New Orleans by enslaved people from San Domingo and the Antilles. Calinda (also Kalinda) is a folk dance and music which arose in the Caribbean in the 1720s that originated in African martial arts. In Haiti and Trinidad it was a form of stick fighting and was performed during carnivals by the enslaved in the Caribbean and New Orleans. It became a voodoo dance and "the dance of Congo Square". The Calinda dance was integrated into Mardi Gras Indian traditions. Other dance influences were the chica, an Afro-Caribbean dance, and bamboula, an African derived dance, that were performed at Congo Square by free and enslaved people. Historians in New Orleans see the continuation of African, Caribbean, European and Cuban musical and dance influences at Congo Square.

Caribbean music influenced Mardi Gras Indians performances. In 1976, The Wild Tchoupitoulas released an album and their music is described as "A lilting reggae groove with a calypso-inspired melody..."

African-American Spiritual Church

The Voodoo religion influenced New Orleans Black Spiritual churches and Mardi Gras Indian culture.

The African-American Spiritual church movement resembles other New World African diaspora religions. In New Orleans, such churches have a range of influences, including Louisiana Voodoo, folk Catholicism, Protestantism, Spiritualism, Bakongo and Nkisi culture, and African diaspora religions such as Espiritismo and Palo Mayombe. Native American images were incorporated into the practices of New Orleans Black Spiritualist communities as early as 1852. After, in 1920, Leafy Anderson moved to New Orleans and brought the belief that the Sauk leader Black Hawk was a spirit guide who could be called upon in prayer, this was also syncretized into Black Spiritualist church practices.

Mardi Gras Indians attend Spiritual churches in New Orleans because of a shared interest in the history of Native American resistance and spirit possession. Some congregations in Spiritual churches incorporate Mardi Gras Indian traditions into their services and believe they can conjure the spirits of Native American resistance leaders such as Black Hawk, White Eagle, Red Cloud, and White Hawk. Altars to Native American spirits, Catholic saints, ancestors, Archangel Michael, and other spirits are placed inside Spiritual churches for spirit communication and conjuration of spirits. In one Spiritual church a three-foot-high Indian statue is decorated with a Mardi Gras Indian headdress and bead patches. In addition, the practices of Mardi Gras Indians attract church members where they perform ring shout dances with percussion in inner city clubs.

An Indian costume with an exaggerated headdress in the Caribbean Island of Trinidad. Caribbean carnival and spirituality influenced Mardi Gras Indian culture.

Leafy Anderson wore a Native American chief's mantle to call the spirit of Black Hawk during her services. This tradition continued into the late 20th century. In the 1980s, James Anderson wore the suit of deceased tribal member Big Chief Jolley to a Black Hawk ceremony at Infant Jesus of Prague Spiritual Church. One church minister dressed as a Mardi Gras Indian to summon the spirits of Black Hawk and Reverend Adams that resulted in a "séance" of ancestors and deceased friends. Black Hawk symbolizes protest and empowerment for the majority of women in the churches that experience racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.

Indigenous cultural influences

Indigenous people, enslaved Africans, and free Creoles of color had their festivals at Congo Square. Enslaved Africans incorporated elements from Native American culture.

Scholars at Tulane University created an online exhibit that provides a brief history of Mardi Gras Indians and the cultural influences of Natchez people among enslaved Africans. The American Gulf Coast Indigenous Nations are the Chitimacha, Natchez, Houma, Atakapa, and Tunica. The Underground Railroad went through Native American communities and a number of enslaved Africans escaped slavery and sought freedom and refuge in Native American villages. Enslaved Africans adopted some elements of Native culture that blended with West African and Afro-Caribbean song and dances. Natchez people use ornamental feathers for ceremonial purposes. The Chitimacha were the first to make a public musical procession in New Orleans called Marche du Calumet de Paix. The first Mardi Gras Indians paraded the streets of New Orleans during the Reconstruction era.

Masking Indians honor the help given their ancestors by Native Americans who took runaway enslaved people into their tribes by incorporating American Indian symbols into their carnivals. Native American resistance is a key theme in Mardi Gras Indian performances.

A New Orleans newspaper, Verite News, described this practice of masking Indian as a Black cultural expression through decorative art utilizing symbols that show a shared history with Louisiana's Native American community. During slavery, Louisiana's Indigenous community harbored freedom seekers in their villages; Black Mardi Gras Indians are telling this story visually through their regalia. According to author Sascha Just, Mardi Gras Indians mask as Indigenous people to embody Native American heroism displayed in their suits and performances to celebrate their heritage of resistance to enslavement and oppression when they allied with American Indians in New Orleans' swamps and bayous, and to show respect for Native Americans who assisted freedom seekers escape from slavery.

Other Native American and African American encounters

Buffalo Bill's Wild West show of the 1890s may have influenced Mardi Gras Indian suits.

During the late 1740s and 1750s, many enslaved Africans fled to the bayous of Louisiana where they encountered Native Americans. Years later, after the Civil War, hundreds of freed slaves joined the U.S. Ninth Cavalry Regiment, also known as Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers fought, killed, forced, and aided the mass removal and relocation of the Plains Indians on the Western Frontier. After returning to New Orleans, many ex-soldiers joined popular Wild West shows, most notably Buffalo Bill's Wild West. The show wintered in New Orleans from 1884 to 1885 and was hailed by the Daily Picayune as "the people's choice". There was at least one black cowboy in the show, and there were numerous black cowhands. According to author Michael Smith, the Buffalo Soldiers who fought the Plains Indians could have returned to New Orleans and competed in Wild West shows and carnivals.

On Mardi Gras in 1885, 50 to 60 Plains Indians marched in native dress on the streets of New Orleans. Later that year, it is believed the first Mardi Gras Indian gang was formed; the tribe was named "The Creole Wild West". While scholars have attributed the formation of the Creole Wild West to Becate Batiste, a putative Black Indian, some scholars suggest these were members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show instead. However, the "Indian gangs" might predate their appearance in the city. A source from 1849 refers to Black performers on Congo Square fully covered in "the plumes of the peacock."

Author Michael Smith suggests that Black Americans who attended Wild West shows and saw performers in Plains Indian attire influenced the suits of Mardi Gras Indians. Mardi Gras Indians dislike this interpretation because "...it emphasizes imitation over originality and agency, attributing what they consider a sacred tradition to a cheap form of entertainment that exploited rather than honored Native Americans". In addition, this interpretation does not see this cultural tradition created from syncretic blends of Native American, African, and Caribbean cultures. Many of the suits made by Black people in New Orleans are original creations, and not imitations from entertainment shows.

Author and poet Kalamu ya Salaam argues that the Mardi Gras Indians were formed before the wild west shows of the 1880s. Salaam cites other examples of carnivals and festivals in the Caribbean during the era of enslavement that were similar to New Orleans Black masking Indian performances. Also, in 1781 the Spanish governor of the city forbade large gatherings of enslaved and free Black people at taverns and banned them from dancing, wearing masks and feathers during carnival seasons. African Americans and Indigenous peoples of Louisiana and in the Seminole Nation in Florida united against white oppression. According to Salaam, these connections inspired African Americans in New Orleans to dress as Native Americans and tell stories of resistance and escape through visual art and dance seen in the performances of Mardi Gras Indians. Scholar and filmmaker, Maurice M. Martinez, also argues that the Mardi Gras Indians predate Eurocentric interpretations of Native Americans presented during Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Black people in New Orleans dressed as American Indians during carnival seasons years before Buffalo Bill and his wild west show came to the city.

The Spiritual church movement in New Orleans in the 1920s may have influenced Mardi Gras Indians to incorporate feather designs from Plains Indians and other Indigenous nations into their suits. Some African Americans believe they can call on the spirit of Sauk Leader Black Hawk and other Native American resistance leaders. They were inspired and respected Indigenous peoples resistance and fight against American westward expansion.

Congo Square

The image demonstrates the Angolan culture and the way of dressing. According to historian Jeroen Dewulf, Kongolese Central African dress and music influenced the Mardi Gras Indians.

In 1740, New Orleans' Congo Square was a cultural center for African music and dance; the city was also a major southern trade port that became a cultural melting pot. New Orleans was more open-minded than many Southern cities, and on Sundays enslaved African people gathered to sing folk songs, play traditional music, and dance. The lively parties were recounted by a Northern observer as being "indescribable... Never will you see gayer countenances, demonstrations of more forgetfulness of the past and the future, and more entire abandonment to the joyous existence of the present moment." The idea of letting loose and embracing traditional African music and dance is a backbone of the Mardi Gras Indians practice. Masking Indians play traditional music using belled wrists and ankle bands, congas, and tambourines.

The music of Mardi Gras Indians played at Congo square contributed to the creation of jazz. Their music is derived from African polyrhythms and syncopated beats combined with African and Creole languages, and French and European musical influences. An article from Folklife in Louisiana comments on the continuation of African rhythms at Congo Square: "The Mardi Gras Indians also retained the Bamboula, which describes a drumbeat and dance. For nearly one hundred and twenty years the Bamboula, associated with Louisiana Congo Square legacy, was kept intact within that tradition." The traditional New Orleans Black masking Indian song Iko Iko is believed to derive from a combination of the Native American Choctaw and Chickasaw languages, Louisiana Creole, French, and West African languages.

African diasporan influences

Maracatu festival in Brazil

Scholars have noted the similar musical, dance, and regalia practices of Black people across the African diaspora. The arrival of Haitian slaves during the Haitian Revolution and Dominican slaves in 1809, brought Caribbean carnival culture to the Black Americans of New Orleans. Many of the Dominicans had Yoruba ancestry, and their masquerade culture of Egungun syncretized with the culture of the New Orleans enslaved communities.

By the 20th century, more Haitian immigrants settled in Louisiana where some elements of rara festival culture blended with Black American carnivals. When other Afro-Caribbean communities started to settle in New Orleans, their culture was incorporated into the suits, dances and music.

A carnival in Grenada in 1965.

Historian Jeroen Dewulf notes that Black people dress as Indigenous people and wear feathered headdresses in Cuba, Peru, Trinidad, and Brazil. Feathered headdresses are worn in the Americas and by Kikongo people in Central Africa. In African and Native American cultures, feathers have a spiritual meaning. They elevate the wearer's spirit and connect them to the spirit realm. Kikongo people wear feathered headdresses in ceremonies, festivals, are worn by African chiefs and dancers, and feathers are placed on masks to bring in good medicine. According to Dewulf, this practice continued in the Americas where enslaved Africans and their descendants wear feather headdresses during carnivals. The designs of African headdresses blended with headdresses worn by Indigenous people creating unique styles across the diaspora.

The festivals performed tell a story about their ancestors escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. Author Natalie Medea describes the Young Seminole Hunters, a tribe which sculpts elaborate suits to honor the roles the Seminole people and other Native American nations had in liberating enslaved Black people.

Carnival culture in the diaspora

A junkanoo costume worn by Black people in the Bahamas is similar to other carnival and festival cultures in the Black diaspora.

Pan-American carnival cultural celebrations in the Black Diaspora that are similar to the performances and regalia of Mardi Gras Indians are:

• Second Line Parades - New Orleans and Cuba
• Ruberos groups – Cuba
• Escolas de Samba, Capoeira – Brazil
• Maracatu parades- Brazil
• Rara festival – Haiti
• 19th Century Jametta Carnival – Trinidad
• Trinidad and Tobago Carnival
• Jokonnu – West Indies
• Sociedad de las Congas – Panama
• French Guiana
• L'agya – Martinique

Masquerade

Author Raphael Njoku suggests Africans in the diaspora use masquerade carnivals to protest oppression. He says: "While masquerading is reminiscent of the communal sociopolitical structures in precolonial Africa, the African Diaspora masked carnivals challenged the political powers and interests of the dominant White elite." Black carnivals provide a space for African Americans to unite, free from exploitation by white Americans, and represent a rejection of white carnival norms. As "an expression of Black resistance to white supremacist environment", Black masking traditions in New Orleans are a combination of Caribbean and African folk art that was sustained by African Americans despite colonialism, slavery, Black Codes, and racism.

Mardi Gras Indians in 2007 play music using African drums and tambourines on "Super Sunday".

For many Black people, Mardi Gras is a cultural and a spiritual experience. While the tradition began as a male right of passage, as were the masquerade traditions in West and Central Africa, today many Black women partake in this tradition as well. Cherice Harrison-Nelson, a Mardi Gras Indian from New Orleans, says partaking in the Mardi Gras Indian tradition was a spiritual and personal choice. Five generations of her family have masked as Indians. Harrison-Nelson notes the similar cultural practices of Mardi Gras Indians and West Africans in the music, polyrhythms, and regalia. She says: "I would say this tradition is an African-American community neighborhood-based tradition that often uses a Native American motif, which includes the feather headdresses and beadwork. But basically, everything else about it is West African."

Authors Shane Lief and John McCusker noted that imagery of Native Americans was placed on costumes and used in parades in New Orleans since the 18th century. In the 19th century, entertainers performed on stage using negative stereotypes of Native Americans in minstrel shows. This may have influenced some of the regalia and performances of Mardi Gras Indians. By the 1960s into present day, some Mardi Gras Indians began to incorporate more imagery from African cultures and African diaspora religions in their regalia, and removed the words "Indian Red" in their music. Author Michael Smith says that the lyrics of "Indian Red" are a prayer song sung during Mardi Gras Indian practices that honors various "gang" members past and present, and praying for peace and justice. Andrew Pearse suggests the origins of Indian Red comes from a carnival song in Trinidad "Indurubi" which may have come from the Spanish Indio Rubi (Indian Red).

Sangamento

An Egungun ceremony in Benin - Scholars suggest the regalia (suits) of Mardi Gras Indians have influences from West African ceremonial cultures.

The performances of Mardi Gras Indians display influences from mock-war performances by warriors called sangamento from the Kingdom of Kongo. The word is derived from a verb in the Kikongo language, ku-sanga, denoting ecstatic dancers. In Portuguese ku-sanga became sangamento. Kikongo people in Central Africa performed dances decorated in African feather headdresses and wore belts with jingle bells. Sangamento performers dance using leaps, contortions, and gyrations; this style of dancing influenced the dance styles of Mardi Gras Indians. During the transatlantic slave trade, Bantu people were enslaved in the Americas and influenced carnival culture in the Black diaspora and Mardi Gras Indian performances in New Orleans. Sangamentos were a brotherhood of men with a semi-underground culture that may have influenced the Mardi Gras tradition at Congo Square. Scholars at Duke University found that Kikongo peoples' culture influenced African diaspora religions, Afro-American music, and the dance and musical styles of Mardi Gras Indians.

Suits

See also: New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies

A blending of cultures shown in regalia

Mardi Gras Indian suits cost thousands of dollars in materials alone and can weigh upwards of one hundred pounds (45 kg). A suit usually takes between six and nine months to plan and complete, but can take up to a year. Mardi Gras Indians design and create their own suits; elaborate bead patches depict meaningful and symbolic scenes. Beads, feathers, and sequins are integral parts of a Mardi Gras Indian suit. The beadwork is entirely done by hand and features a combination of color and texture. The suits incorporate volume, giving the clothing a sculptural sensibility. Uptown New Orleans tribes tend to have more pictorial and African-inspired suits; downtown tribes have more 3D suits with more Native American influences. The suits are revealed on Super Sunday. Some of the suits are displayed in museums throughout the country.

Even though men dominate, women can become "Queens" who make their own regalia and masks. Author Cynthia Becker states the Mardi Gras Indian suits "...express people's religious beliefs, historical pride, and racial heritage". Cherice Harrison-Nelson says her suits tell her family's history – the story of an ancestor who was stolen and enslaved. Harrison-Nelson adds the Ghanaian Adinkra symbols to her suits to emphasize that the tradition has origins in West Africa. Tiara Horton, Queen of the 9th Ward Black Hatchet tribe, created a Black Lives Matter suit in 2020 before the murder of George Floyd, showing beaded images of Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin, and the Obamas. For Horton, the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is her way of protesting.

In 2024, to preserve this practice for younger generations, the Arts New Orleans' Young Artist Movement provided funding for local young Black artists to create Mardi Gras Indian suits.

Cultural designs

When making their suits, Mardi Gras Indians incorporate cultural designs from West African and North American Indigenous cultures, making their regalia a unique form of African-American folk art. The West African cultural elements are cowrie shells, kente cloth, raffia, African face masks and shields. Researchers have described Nigerian beading technique in "Uptown styles" while Bakongo influences are scene in the suits of "Downtown styles."

Native American influences

Chief and members of the "Yellow Pocahontas" "tribes" St. Joseph's Day, 1942, their suits show more American Indian influences.

Native American cultural elements are incorporated into the headdresses and feather designs of Mardi Gras Indian regalia. The Mardi Gras Indians were inspired by Native American resistance and their fight against white U.S. cavalry soldiers. Some Mardi Gras Indians report that they call on the spirit of Sauk leader Black Hawk for peace and justice.

Some of the Mardi Gras Black Indians' regalia is influenced by inaccurate representations of Native Americans and their cultures. The Indigenous people who helped enslaved Black Americans escape from slavery were from Southeastern Native American tribes who do not wear war bonnets, for example, even though war bonnets have been used by Mardi Gras Indians.

African diasporan influences

Junkanoo Festival in Nassau, Bahamas - Mardi Gras has influences from festival and carnival cultures in the Caribbean, the Bahamas, and Africa.

Over the years, Mardi Gras Indians have increasingly incorporated designs from African and African diaspora cultures in their suits such as beadwork, conch shells, dried grass strands, and designs from Bahamian Junkanoo dancers. Victor Harris, a Black Louisianan, reflects the design work of Bambara and Mandinka cultures with the use of animistic designs, raffia, and feathers.

After Emperor Haile Selassie I visited New Orleans in 1954, Rastafari influences also began to appear in suit designs. Demond Melancon incorporates Rasta colors (red, green, and gold) into his suit, and beads into his regalia historical people associated with the movement, such as the Ethiopian Emperor and his wife, Empress Menen Asfaw. By sewing these Black figures into his suits, he conjures their spirits. The Rastafari movement also inspired Eric Burt to bead cultural symbols from the religion. Some Black Mardi Gras Indians are Rastas and display this in their music and regalia.

Some Black maskers practice traditional African religions in their daily lives and incorporate this into Mardi Gras. Mystic Medicine Man of the Golden Feather Hunters tribe shows his Congo ancestry by sewing the word nganga, a word in Kikongo that means a spiritual and herbal healer in Central Africa, into his suits. Other Black masking tribes such as the Spirit of Fi Yi Yi and the Mandingo Warriors were founded to connect with African masquerade traditions. Members of this tribe mask as Elegba, an orisha (divine spirit) that rules communication and the crossroads. Dow Edwards displays his devotion to the orisha Shango in his suits as Spy Boy of the Mohawk Hunters. Black maskers also turn to the Yoruba religion for inspiration in their designs. They blend European parading traditions and fuse the Yoruba orisha Oshun sacred imagery with the designs of their suits. Other maskers adapt Pan-African, Black Power, and Egyptian iconography into their regalia.

The Black Spiritual church movement in New Orleans in the 1920s may have influenced the regalia of Mardi Gras Indians. Some masking Indians practice Catholicism and blend Catholic saints, traditions, and feast days into their Caribbean and African religious practices during Mardi Gras.

Skull and Bones maskers at the Backstreet Museum during Mardi Gras Day in Treme, New Orleans in 2008

Mardi Gras Indians' suits also include sequined pouches inspired by healers in the Haitian Vodou community. Some masking Indians practice Louisiana Voodoo and incorporate symbols and colors from the religion into their suits. Ty Emmecca is a Big Chief of the Black Hawk Voodoo gang and his gang beads religious symbols from the religion into their regalia and performs Voodoo healing rituals during Mardi Gras. Emmecca makes patches for his suits that are similar to Haitian Vodou drapo, which are handsewn ceremonial sequin flags.

Islamic influences have also been observed in the tradition. During the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved West African Muslims were brought to New Orleans. In the 1960s, many Black people in the city practiced Islam for political and religious reasons. Two Black Masking Indians recently incorporated symbols and Islamic religious beliefs into their suits: Floyd Edwards made a breastplate with an apron honoring Mansa Musa, the 14th-century ruler of the Islamic Mali Empire; and Peteh Muhammad Haroon beaded an image of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam, and the Muslim symbols of a crescent and star.

Mardi Gras Indians design their suits to emphasize their ancestral connections to African and Afro-Caribbean cultures. They have preserved many of their West-Central African culture by way of decorative folk art, music, and dance. Historian of Black Studies Joseph E. Holloway states that carnivals in New Orleans resemble African-influenced festivals from the Caribbean. The continuation of African and Afro-Caribbean influences in Mardi Gras encourages a Pan-African identity among Black people in New Orleans because of the similar decorative designs seen in regalia across the Black diaspora.

Egungun regalia

Scholars also see Igbo masquerade dances in West Africa as another cultural influence in Mardi Gras Indian communities. Igbo masquerade dancers are an all-male fraternal organization. Egungun regalia also influenced the ceremonies and suits of Black Mardi Gras Indians. The Yoruba wear Egungun masks to invoke and honor ancestral spirits. The masks signify the souls of deceased relatives who return to earth to interact with their living descendants. This cultural influence is also shown in the images of ancestors and Black historical people beaded into Mardi Gras Indians' suits. Beading is often described as a spiritual experience for Black New Orleanians, who have described entering a meditative trance when sewing their suits.

Cultural preservation

Suits displayed at Backstreet Cultural Museum.

Curators are preserving the history of Mardi Gras Indians by displaying and storing their elaborate suits in museums. To preserve the suits, curators work with the makers to prevent damage.

The Historic New Orleans Collections Museum has partnered with the city's Black arts community to preserve their culture. Curator Loren Brown says of the process:

These suits are not just pretty costumes; as many practitioners have stated, they also hold a deeper spiritual significance, and so we must consider a respectful way to care for them. For instance, when repairs are necessary, it may be best to have the original maker or a member of the maker's tribe perform the work instead of a textile conservator.

Tribes

Mardi Gras Indians organize in groups known as "tribes" (or "gangs"). Group names are influenced by street names, ancestry and important cultural figures. For example, some Black Americans in New Orleans descend from Senegalese or Mandinka people in West Africa; others have some Native American ancestry. Tribes with Seminole in their name reflect stories of enslaved people who escaped slavery and found refuge in the Seminole Nation. During parades, some tribes are identified by their masks.

• 7th Ward Creole Hunters
• 7th Ward Hard Headers
• 7th Ward Hunters
• 9th Ward Hunters
• Algiers Warriors 1.5
• Apache Hunters
• Black Cherokee
• Black Eagles
• Black Feather
• Black Hatchet
• Black Hawk Hunters
• Black Mohawks
• Black Seminoles
• Burning Spears
• Carrollton Hunters
• Cheyenne Hunters
• Chippewa Hunters
• Choctaw Hunters
• Comanche Hunters
• Congo Nation
• Creole Apache
• Creole Osceola
• Creole Wild West
• Flaming Arrows
• Geronimo Hunters
• Golden Arrows
• Golden Blades
• Golden Comanche
• Golden Eagles
• Golden Feather Hunters
• Golden Star Hunters
• Guardians of the Flame
• Hard Head Hunters
• Louisiana Star Choctaw Nation
• LoyalBreed Apache Warriors
• Mandingo Warriors
• Mohawk Hunters
• Monogram Hunters
• Morning Star Hunters
• Northside Skull and Bones Gang
• Red Hawk Hunters
• Red Flame Hunters
• Red White and Blue
• Seminole Hunters
• Seminole (Mardi Gras Indian Tribe)
• Spirit of FiYiYi (aka Fi-Yi-Yi)
• Timbuktu Warriors
• Trouble Nation
• Unified Nation
• Uptown Warriors
• Washitaw Nation
• White Cloud Hunters
• White Eagles
• Wild Apache
• Wild Bogacheeta
• Wild Tchoupitoulas
• Wild Magnolias
• Wild Mohicans
• Yellow Pocahontas
• Yellow Jackets
• Young Navaho
• Young Brave Hunters
• Young Monogram Hunters
• Young Cheyenne
• Young Seminole Hunter

Groups are largely independent, but a pair of umbrella organizations loosely coordinates the Uptown Indians and the Downtown Indians. The Mardi Gras Indian Council coordinates between more than 40 active tribes, which range in size from half a dozen to several dozen members. Their suits are displayed in museums in Louisiana and the Smithsonian.

Traditionally, Mardi Gras Indians were only seen in public in full regalia on Mardi Gras Day, Saint Joseph's Day (March 19) and the Sunday nearest to Saint Joseph's Day ("Super Sunday"). In recent years, it has become more common to see Mardi Gras Indians at other festivals and parades in the city as well. For example, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has hired tribes to appear at their festival. The Mardi Gras Indians traditions are considered a unique artform and ritual which represents New Orleans Black culture.

Parade formation and protocol

Jazz Fest in New Orleans in 2012 at a Mardi Gras Indian parade

The Mardi Gras Indians play various traditional roles. Many blocks ahead of the Indians are plain-clothed informants keeping an eye out for any danger. The procession begins with "spyboys", dressed in light "running suits" that allow them the freedom to move quickly in case of emergency. Next comes the "first flag", an ornately dressed Indian carrying a token flag in their gang colours. Closest to the "Big Chief" is the "Wildman" who usually carries a symbolic weapon. Finally, there is the Big Chief, who decides where to go and which tribes to meet (or ignore). The entire group is followed by percussionists and revelers.

During the march, the Indians dance and sing traditional songs particular to their individual tribes. They use creole dialects or patois, loosely based on different African and European languages. The Big Chief decides where the group will parade; the parade route is different each time. When two tribes come across each other, they either pass by or meet for a symbolic fight. Each tribe lines up and the Big Chiefs taunt each other about their suits and their tribes. The drum beats of the two tribes intertwine, and the face-off is complete. Both tribes continue on their way.

Skull and Bones gangs

Northside Skull and Bones gang, Mardi Gras Morning in Treme in 2018

The Northside Skull and Bones gang and other masking traditions continue at Treme during Mardi Gras. According to local oral history, the Skull and Bones Gangs started in 1819 in Treme. Black Maskers dress in black costumes with painted white skeleton bones to honor the dead and to caution the living that death is inevitable. Some participants state that the tradition came to New Orleans by way of Caribbean and African cultures where the dead are honored in the Haitian Vodou religion. Skull and Bones masker Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes traveled to Africa and said he saw skeleton-like spirits and Voodoo markets. During Mardi Gras, Barnes recognizes the Guédé, a family of spirits in Haitian Vodou that are guardians of the cemetery. Skull and Bones gangs act as spiritual town guardians and carnival town criers. Jazz historian John McCusker found skeleton maskers were referenced in archives dating back to 1875. A 1902 local newspaper, Times-Democrat, referenced young Black maskers on the streets of North Claiborne Avenue, North Robertson and Annette.

Violence

Mardi Gras Indian getting ready

In the early days of the Mardi Gras Indians, masking and parading was also a time to settle grudges. This part of Mardi Gras Indian history is referenced in James Sugar Boy Crawford's song, "Jock-A-Mo" (better known and often covered as "Iko Iko"), based on their taunting chants. In the late 1960s, Allison Montana, "Chief of Chiefs", fought to end violence between the Mardi Gras Indian tribes. He said, "I was going to make them stop fighting with the gun and the knife and start fighting with the needle and thread." Today, the Mardi Gras Indians settle their fights through the "prettiness" of their suits instead of violence.

Racism

An Egungun ceremony in Benin - The suits of Mardi Gras Indians have influences from West African ceremonial costumes.

The cultural performances of Mardi Gras Indians are rooted in the history of racial discrimination in New Orleans. Free and enslaved Black people were banned from attending Mardi Gras by white New Orleans carnival krewes. Instead, African American communities celebrated Mardi Gras by incorporating West African rhythms, drumming, dance, and masking traditions into their own festivities, and masked as Indians to tell stories of enslaved people escaping slavery and finding refuge in Native American communities. Masking allowed Black Americans to celebrate their African heritage under a more acceptable guise as "Indians", while showing solidarity with, and paying tribute to, Native American ancestors and allies.

Mardi Gras Indians have continued to experience marginalization and police brutality into the 21st century. In response, the Mardi Gras Indian Council formed in 1985 to facilitate better coordination between the 32 tribes and their members.

Cultural appropriation

West Indian parades influenced carnivals in New Orleans.

Mardi Gras Indian culture is a combination of African, Caribbean, Indigenous, and European influences, which underwent a process of creolization and syncretism in New Orleans. For instance, the beadwork, drumbeats, and aprons worn by Mardi Gras Indians resembles the cultures of West and Central Africa. Indigenous nations also provided refuge for escaped slaves across the Americas; in New Orleans, Blacks and Native Americans also intermarried and existed alongside each other, sharing customs and cultures. As such, the masking of the Mardi Gras Indians resembles West African masquerade ceremonies and warrior dances but also draws on Indigenous motifs.

Some scholars and campaigners have suggested that the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is a form of cultural appropriation. There has also been debate about red "war paint" and feathered headdresses, and whether these are based on negative stereotypes of Indigenous people or Afro-Caribbean traditions brought by Haitian and Dominican slaves. The activist Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) says she is unsure if the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is cultural appropriation, but that it makes many Native Americans uncomfortable. She says, "The history of Mardi Gras Indians comes out of a history of shared oppression and marginality between the Black and Native residents", and says the tradition may have evolved "outside of the realm of cultural appropriation into a distinct culture and community".

Donald Harrison Jr., a member of the Congo Nation group, has said that his group changed their name because "some Native Americans may be angry about it", choosing an African name because "we are an African-American tribe of New Orleans." Demond Melancon, a Mardi Gras Indian, suggests that the name of this cultural tradition needs to change to reflect where these practices originated. He says, "It's been a hidden culture for 250 years and you have to know where it really comes from." He suggests that because the masking tradition originated in Africa, the subculture should be called "Black Maskers".

Some Mardi Gras Indians have also decided to drop the words "Indian Red" from the song of the same name to avoid offending Indigenous people. The song "Indian Red" has been called a "prayer" for the tradition, and has been used since at least the 1940s.

Indigenous motifs have been employed in carnivals in New Orleans since the 18th century. Scholars Shane Lief and John McCusker suggest these motifs were influenced by the minstrel shows of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which portrayed Black and Native people in negative ways. For example, Warner McCary, a Black man who escaped slavery in Natchez and took on a Native American persona ("Okah Tubbee"), was a popular performer in New Orleans. Scholars such as Maurice Martinez and Jeroen Dewulf, and author Kalamu ya Salaam, state that Mardi Gras Indians predate Eurocentric racist interpretations of Native Americans. In parts of the Caribbean and South America, Black people "mask" as Indigenous people because of a shared history of oppression between the two groups. They argue that ultimately Caribbean cultures influenced the Mardi Gras Indian tradition.

David Guss suggests that when Black Americans "mask" as Indigenous peoples they are not trying to be Native American or claim a Native American identity; they are telling a visual story of how enslaved Africans escaped slavery in Louisiana and found refuge in nearby Native American villages. He says Black people are not ridiculing or parodying Native Americans. Guss describes the Mardi Gras Indians, Andean natives that dress as European colonists, and other examples of one ethnicity dressing or masking as another ethnicity as "ethnic cross-dressing".

Scholar Nikesha Elise Williams provides two reason why Black Americans mask as Indigenous people:

Masking as indigenous has served at least two important purposes. It’s a way to pay homage to their ancestors and their friendship with the Native American tribes that harbored them 'while also paying tribute to the warrior culture of African tribes that were enslaved on the continent and brought over to the new world...'

New Orleans filmmaker Jonathan Isaac Jackson says the Mardi Gras Indians have their own unique tradition, which emerged from syncretism of West African and Native American traditions, but suggests that white people and outsiders have begun using Mardi Gras Indian practices without these traditional connections to the culture. He says:

People are moving away from New Orleans, and people are moving into New Orleans that aren't affiliated with the culture. One of the big things I was looking at and thinking about is the idea that, at some point, we would see white tribes. I was trying to figure out how to document or tell a story where it's understood how connected to our ancestors this tradition truly is. It's a way of saying, 'We don't want you to not dress up as a Mardi Gras Indian because you're not Black. We want you to respect the fact that you shouldn't want to dress up as a Mardi Gras Indian because it's associated with Black culture and its roots go back all the way back to Africa.'

Mardi Gras Indians have worked with lawyers to copyright their creations and prevent people from profiting off their designs.

In popular culture

• The HBO series Treme features one tribe of Mardi Gras Indians, the Guardians of the Flame, in one of the major plot lines weaving through the series, featuring preparations, the parades, as well as strained relationships with the police department.
• The song "Iko Iko" mentions two Mardi Gras Indian tribes.
• Beyoncé's 2016 visual album Lemonade showcases a Mardi Gras Indian circling a dining table, paying homage to the New Orleans culture.
• In the Freeform series Cloak & Dagger, based on the eponymous Marvel Comics characters, Tyrone Johnson's father and brother were Mardi Gras Indians prior to the events of the show. When Tyrone discovers his signature cloak it is revealed his brother was working on it while training to be a spyboy.

Further reading

• Mitchell, Reid (1995). "Mardi Gras Indians". All on a Mardi Gras Day: Episodes in the History of New Orleans Carnival. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 113–130. ISBN 0-674-01623-8.
• Dewulf, Jeroen (2017). From the Kingdom of Kongo to Congo Square: Kongo Dances and the Origins of the Mardi Gras Indians. Lafayette, LA: University of Louisiana at Lafayette Press. ISBN 9781935754961.

External links

• From Maroons to Mardi Gras: The Role of African Cultural Retention in the Development of the Black Indian Culture of New Orleans from Liberty University
• Mardi Gras Indians have rich history from Clarion Herald
• Mystery in Motion: African American Spirituality in Mardi Gras from Xavier University of Louisiana
• Fire in the Hole: Honoring Big Queen Kim Boutte with the Spirit of Fi Yi Yi and the Mandingo Warriors from Xavier University of Louisiana
• Big Chief Demond Melancon
• Bette Midler with Mardi Gras Indian Show
• Mardi Gras Indian Entertainment
• St. Joseph's Night in New Orleans: Out After Dark with the Wild Indians
• Mardi Gras Indian Influence on the Music of New Orleans
• "Big Chief Kevin Goodman and Mardi Gras Indian tribal history", Austin Chronicle
• Backstreet Cultural Museum
• Matthew Hinton, "Gallery: 7th Ward Mardi Gras Indians on Fat Tuesday 2010", The New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 16, 2010
• Clayton Cubitt's photographs and videos of Mardi Gras Indians posted to Tumblr
• Mardi Gras Indians – "Battling" on St. Josephs Night PBS
• Gallery of St. Joseph's Day 2016 Parade
• Rethinking the Historical Development of Caribbean Performance Culture from an Afro-Iberian Perspective