‘Masking as Indian’ — A Transformation from Ordinary to Extraordinary

By Diane Grams, Ph.D.

“Masking as Indian” is how Black New Orleanians describe the elaborate ritual that converts ordinary neighborhood streets into extraordinary stages for transformative display on Mardi Gras Day. This distinct cultural practice has occurred for more than a century, but has been subordinated to the larger Mardi Gras tradition and rendered invisible to most Americans. It persists today within the broader New Orleanian cultural context characterized by masking, dancing, singing, and meandering the city streets on Mardi Gras day.

As a cultural sociologist teaching at Tulane University (2007-2013), I was enthralled with the activities of the Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs and Mardi Gras Indian tribes found today in the predominantly Black working-class communities. As cultural researcher, I sought to learn how the practice of making the elaborate beaded suits each year was sustained despite the relative poverty of its practitioners and how the celebratory rituals were rejuvenated amid the devastation in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Rituals of Respect

The creation of an “Indian suit” made of feathers and hand-beaded narrative imagery to adorn the body began as a form of unauthorized parading on the backstreets of the city; it was when the only sanctioned role for Blacks was as a torchbearer carrying flambeaux for white businessmen enthroned as royalty for the day. “It was our way to show respect to our Indian brothers for helping us in times of need,” said the Big Chief of the Carrollton Hunters. This broadly shared narrative refers to a bond in freedom between Indians and Blacks when escaped African slaves turned to Native Americans in the swamps and bayous for survival. For others, such as Big Chief Monk Boudreaux of the Golden Eagles, it was a way to embrace his biracial identity as Black and Choctaw. The masking tradition visible today involves 30 or so tribes meandering the backstreets of the city, while the floats of the mainstream Mardi Gras Krewes roll down the major thoroughfares. This tradition is so widespread it has been memorialized in countless New Orleanian songs, such as “Meet de boys on the Battlefront” by the Wild Tchoupitoulas and “Sew, Sew, Sew” by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and the Golden Eagles.

Somebody’s got to Sew, Sew, Sew

The artistry of hand-stitched beadwork is a skill that must be mastered by a Big Chief; sewing is an ongoing activity carried out during the preceding year through his own handiwork. The Chief sews his narrative images as “patches,” which are convenient, portable artworks ranging from eight to 24 inches. He then frames them with ruffle and assembles them into a “suit” just before Mardi Gras. The beauty and artistry of his suit sets him apart from the lesser-skilled. The practice of sewing, assembling the suit and being a member of a tribe creates a symbolic identity, a bond and status that extends into routines of everyday life long after Mardi Gras is over.

On Mardi Gras morning, the ritual begins when tribal members emerge from a designated location—such as the home of the Big Chief—and they are introduced through the song, “Indian Red,” to a cheering crowd. The Big Chief also reveals his suit for the first time as he steps onto the street on Mardi Gras day. Once on the street, the tribe’s spy boys, flag boys, and lower chiefs move a block or two in advance of the Big Chief and the Big Queen, who are accompanied by percussionists and chanting followers to announce their presence as they move among neighborhoods. As tribes from different neighborhoods meet, their interaction is framed as respect for the craft of suit-making, for the status of each member of the tribe, and for the Big Chief.

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and Big Queen Mary of the Golden Eagles with Costumed “Skel-e-Kins” and Other Costumed Followers on Mardi Gras 2010

The elder status of Big Chief Monk Boudreaux means that he is unlikely to receive any direct challenge on the streets. Yet, he acknowledges that street battles among Mardi Gras Indians were prevalent until the 1990s when the establishment of the Mardi Gras Indian Council shifted the focus to an aesthetic competition for who is the “cleanest” or “prettiest.”

Cleanest and Prettiest

According to Aaron Atkinson, a grill chef who regularly runs a smoker grill at neighborhood gathering spots, both are terms to recognize and evaluate the creativity brought to sewing the narrative patches and assembling them with feathers and ruffle to make a spectacular suit:

“‘Clean’ is when you start your suit [each year], you break it down, and you want to make it as neat and as perfect as possible. And all this is from hand sewing, the creativity comes from the individual himself when he’s sewing that suit. Nobody else can duplicate what you do, and that’s where you get your recognition. You might have two horses, he might have five horses, plus a chariot or whatever goes with it [and] that would make that go a little bit better. When he lifts his flaps to show the layers of his suit, he knows if his suit is prettier than another. Then he’ll put his flap down, and he’ll go and challenge the next guy.”

In one such competition, James, a Cheyenne Spy Boy, came upon another who had little beadwork to show. James dramatically raised one arm, then the other, revealing his white and pink suit covered with layers of exquisite beadwork. From his arms hung beaded half-circles draped with long ostrich plumes to create the impression of wings. The crowd surrounding him expressed appreciation for his work by shouting “prii-ttee, prii-ttee,” but his competitor refused to budge. In a series of symbolic gestures, James jumped back and forth like a boxer might, swiping the ground and then his competitor’s face with the plumes extending from “his wings.”

Competition initiated by the gesture of arms wide open to display “wings” of a suit is a repeated dramatic gesture seen as a tribe moves through the streets. It signifies the complete transformation from the ordinary man to the stunning, extraordinary Indian-bird creature ready to battle or fly to freedom. For me, coming face to face with such a sight in the middle of a public street is otherworldly. Rather than “take” pleasure in the sight of the Indian, one is compelled to bow, and “give” praise and deference to such overwhelming beauty.

The cultural richness found in New Orleans is often attributed to the synthesis of cultural practices from the Native American, African, Caribbean and European people who ended up there. In early colonial times, the hot swampland was NOT attractive to elites; it was where an unseemly

Diane Grams Art

population of militia, slave merchants, criminal deportees, pirates, missionaries and a few royal appointees coexisted among freed and enslaved Africans and Native Americans.

From its earliest days, free Blacks (gens de couleur, gen de couleur libres) had been among the city’s wealthiest—and had also often been slave-holding citizens—as had an elite biracial class of free people of color and freed slaves. This rarity is attributed to the “code noir” decreed in 1685 by French King Louis XIV allowing for the manumission (freeing) of slaves. This unusual code also decreed slaves to be free from work on Sunday, giving rise to festive weekly gathering at “Congo Square” where Africans and Caribbean slaves gathered to buy, sell, and trade their own goods, to play percussion instruments, and to dance communal dances of the Bamboula or Calinda—all considered cultural foundations for the city’s renown Black musical and performative traditions.

What Mardi Gras Indian tribes do today is a miraculous act of collective memory. The narrative patches that adorn their suits detail both victory and defeat in imagined battles and draw association to and comment on contemporary struggles in these post-Katrina times. The shared experience on Mardi Gras day creates what cultural sociologists have long referred to as “collective effervescence.” Each year in New Orleans, this shared feeling of exuberance generated among all who participate is nothing less than the celebration of the living among the heroic spirits of the dead.

Cheyenne Big Chief Al and his Big Queen Wanda at Second and Dryades on Mardi Gras

Artist and author Diane Grams and photographer Timothy D. Lace maintain a studio and gallery in Studio 12 at St. Mary’s Studios in Michigan City, IN. This account is drawn from her award-winning journal article: Freedom and Cultural Consciousness: Black Working-Class Parades in Post-Katrina New Orleans, published by the Journal of Urban Affairs and available to read on her website: dianegramsart.wordpress.com. Additional photographs may also be found on Tim’s website: tdlacephotography.wordpress.com. Her New Orleans videos are on her Youtube channel: diagrams22.