Mardi Gras Indians

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

Mardi Gras Indians (also known as Black Masking Indians) are African American carnival revelers in New Orleans, Louisiana, who dress up for Mardi Gras in suits influenced by the cultural practices of Native Americans, West Africans, and Afro-Caribbeans. The music, dance, and regalia from these cultures created the Mardi Gras Indian tradition during the era of slavery in Louisiana that continues today. This cultural tradition is a part of the African and African diaspora decorative aesthetic, and is an African-American art form. Black masking Indians are a subculture in New Orleans.

Participants call their krewes "tribes" (another name used are "gangs" for Indian tribes in similar attire) which should not be confused with actual Native American tribes. As Mardi Gras New Orleans states, "Their 'tribes' are named for imaginary Indian tribes according to the streets of their ward or gang." These are African Americans who "mask" as Native Americans. Some Mardi Gras Indians describe their decorative aesthetic as their culture and religion. Other Black maskers do not mask as Native Americans but as orisha spirits from the Yoruba religion and Skull and Bones gangs. Their tradition is rooted in African-American spirituality and Black culture. The suits (regalia), dances, songs, drumbeats, and celebrations performed convey spiritual and cultural meanings about the celebration of life, addressing social justice issues, political liberation, transformation, healing, protection from the unknown, spirit possession, and the conjuring of spirits. The Black Mardi Gras Indian tradition is defined by Joyce Marie Jackson of Tulane University as an African American celebration drawing on American Indian and West African "motifs and music to create a folk ritual and street theater unique to New Orleans".

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 artistry designed on suits is only found in the Mardi Gras Indian art community in New Orleans. Author Marjorie Cohee Manifold explains the tradition as a "unique cultural expression of costume masquerade performance."

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.

Notwithstanding the popularity of such activities for tourists and residents alike, the phenomenon of the Mardi Gras Indians is said to reflect both a vital musical history and an equally vital attempt to express internal social dynamics.

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 at least since the 18th century. The colony of New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718 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.

An article from the Smithsonian Magazine gives a brief history of the Mardi Gras Indians: "Scholars generally agree that the Mardi Gras Indian tradition is linked to early encounters between the region’s Native and Black communities. Founded by the French in 1718, the city of New Orleans stands on land originally inhabited by the Chitimacha Tribe. As early as 1719, European colonizers brought enslaved people from the western coast of Africa to the nascent port city, which eventually became a hub of the United States slave trade. While Africans made up the majority of enslaved people in Louisiana, research conducted by Leila K. Blackbird, a historian at the University of Chicago, found that Native and mixed-race people of Black and Native heritage constituted 20 percent of the state’s enslaved population during the antebellum period."

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 and 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 road to freedom on the Underground Railroad for the enslaved went south to maroon camps because traveling to northern free territories and Canada were too far for freedom seekers. These maroon camps attacked whites, stole cattle from nearby farms for food, and freed nearby 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.

According to various authors, freedom seekers 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 was carried out 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 argue that 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.

"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 dressing as Indigenous people in celebatory 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 the Mardi Gras Indians wore their masks to balls: "...the Spanish administration of the city at the Cabildo granted 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."

An article by author and photographer Michael P. Smith quotes Brassea and explains: "As early as 1781 in Spanish-ruled New Orleans, 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.'" Other examples scene were in 1804 and 1813 where 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 St. Domingue and other Caribbean islands. American merchants in New Orleans invested in capital by importing enslaved persons from Jamaica and other British West Indian colonies for sell. After the abolition of transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the port of New Orleans was the center of the domestic slave trade in the United States before the American Civil War. New Orleans received enslaved persons 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 festival cultures from Haiti, Jamaica and other areas from the West Indies blended with carnival traditions in free and enslaved Black American communities. The Caribbean cultures that influenced New Orleans were: Jonkonnu, Rara, Gaga, Canboulet, and other West Indian maroon settlements. Free and enslaved Black people were banned from attending Mardi Gras by white New Orleans carnival krewes. African American communities celebrated Mardi Gras by incorporating African rhythms, drumming, dance, and masking traditions that resemble those cultures in West Africa into their festivities, and masked as Indians to tell stories of enslaved people escaping slavery and finding refuge in Native American communities.

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

The origins of the Mardi Gras Indians have also been traced to 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 headdress 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.

The history of Mardi Gras Indians has its beginnings in Louisiana's maroon communities, where enslaved Africans hid in the villages of Native Americans. According to Smith, Mardi Gras Indians preserve their traditional African dance culture and music that blended with Native American culture. Congo Square was where enslaved Africans and Native Americans gathered during their free time and was where West-Central African culture blended with Native American culture. In its beginning, they decorated their ornaments with pearls, rhinestones, turkey feathers, fish scales, discarded beads, and sequins—along with their brightly colored ostrich feather headdresses, these can weigh over 150 pounds. Over the years, their suits became more elaborate and colorful and incorporated cultural elements from Africa.

In its early history, they resembled the all-male West African secret masquerade societies practiced among the Igbo and Yoruba. Mardi Gras Indians today have their own secret coded symbols, songs and language only initiates within the community know. In the 19th century, Creole dialects developed differently within each neighborhood because of the diversity of African languages spoken, each having its own syntax and phonetics. This contributed to a diversity of coded dialects sung by Black masking Indians. 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.

Author Raphael Njoku explains Africans in the diaspora use masquerade carnivals to protest oppression. "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 are a way for African Americans to come together without being exploited by the white American community, and a refusal by Black people to not conform to white carnivals. The widely accepted belief about Black American masking traditions is, "...that Mardi Gras Indian culture is 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".

Author Nikesha Williams explains that for Black people, Mardi Gras is a cultural and a spiritual experience. 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. An interview was conducted in 2024 with Cherice Harrison-Nelson, a Mardi Gras Indian from New Orleans. For Harrison-Nelson choosing to partake in the Mardi Gras Indian tradition was a spiritual and personal choice. Five generations in her family 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." The tradition is male-dominated, and women struggle to have a voice. Masking Indian is a rite of passage for Black men and provides manhood and comrade training. Women's role in the tradition is embellishment. Harrison-Nelson continues, "If the chief is pretty, he's prettier with a queen standing next to him."

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).

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

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.

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 believe 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.

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.

Curator and author Paulette Richards suggests that masquerade performances in the Black Atlantic during and after slavery in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a way for African peoples in the Americas to syncretize their African spirits with Catholicism and Christianity to continue honoring some ancestral spirits, because colonial officials banned and forbid Black people from practicing African religions. The Code Noir in French colonies banned all non-Catholic religions and required enslaved and free people to convert to Catholicism. As an act of resistance, enslaved and free Africans in the Americas continued to practice their religions by fusing them with carnivals. In carnivals and African religions there is singing, dancing, drumming, and wearing masks and costumes. Black people continued to practice their traditions and cultures from Africa with influences from Native American cultures which created Black masking carnival traditions in the diaspora and in New Orleans. Masking for African Americans during Mardi Gras is "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. Dancing during Mardi Gras results in spirit possession by ancestors, can animate their masks, and is a symbol of 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 African masking traditions. In Sub-Saharan African cultures, when a person masks their identity changes. 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 spirit. Mardi Gras Indians say that when they mask they become possessed by spirits and are guided by them using ritual prayers. For some Black masking Indians, "successful" masking experiences "include 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.

According to anthropologist Claude Jacobs, Black Spiritual churches in New Orleans have influences from Louisiana Voodoo, folk Catholicism, Protestantism, and Spiritualism. Jacobs defines the African-American Spiritual church movement as a spiritual religion that resembles other New World African derived religions. According to research, the spiritualist movement was active in New Orleans as early as 1852 to 1853. According to authors Judith Bettelheim and Stephen Wehmeyer, since the beginning of the American spiritualist movement in the 19th century, the imagery of Native Americans in the beliefs and practices of American spiritualists were associated with the movement. Bettelheim and Wehmeyer suggest that American Indian images were incorporated into the practices of New Orleans Black Spiritualist communities as early as 1852. Emma Britton, a spiritualist historian, documented Black mediums in the movement in the 19th century, and Caribbean influences may have also brought Indian imagery and American Indian spirits.

In 1920 Leafy Anderson moved to New Orleans and brought the belief that the Sauk leader Black Hawk is a spirit guide and can be called upon in prayer or ritual. Black Spiritual churches syncretized practices from Leafy Anderson into their services. Other religious traditions African Americans blended were African religious practices, Pentecostal worship, mediumship, spirit possession, Hoodoo, and Native American resistance. Mardi Gras Indians attend Spiritual churches in New Orleans because of a shared interest masking Indians and church members have with 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. American Indian altars include a tomahawk, bows and arrows, spears, red candles and cloth, and pictures of Native Americans on horseback. In one spiritual church a three-foot-high Indian statue is decorated with a Mardi Gras Indian headdress and bead patches.

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

Some participates believe the mediums of the church become possessed by the spirits of Indians. 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. 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. In addition, the practices of Mardi Gras Indians attract church members where they perform ring shout dances with percussion in inner city clubs.

According to authors Judith Bettelheim and Stephen Wehmeyer, the Spiritual church movement in New Orleans Black communities may also have influences from Bakongo Nkisi culture and Afro-Caribbean spirituality. The belief in the conjuration of American Indian spirits using Indian statues according to researchers comes from Cuba and Puerto Rico. Cuban and Puerto Rican practitioners of Espiritismo and Palo Mayombe conjure Native American spirits using Indian statues similar to how Bakongo people in Central Africa conjure spirits using Nkisi statues. Authors Bettelheim and Wehmeyer suggest that during the Spanish–American War, bands from New Orleans played music for Cuban troops and beginning in the 1860s into the early 20th century, a boat service operated from Havana to New Orleans. In addition, observers of Cuban carnivals saw Cuban people masquerade as American Indians. Between 1860 and the early 1900s, Cuban culture influenced carnival and spirituality in New Orleans. According to scholar Jeroen Dewulf, the Black Spiritual Church movement and the story of Black Hawk in New Orleans may have influenced Mardi Gras Indians to incorporate regalia and the feathers of other Native American nations into their suits.

Indigenous cultural influences

Scholars at Tulane University created an online exhibit that explains a brief history about Mardi Gras Indians and how Natchez people's culture influenced the cultural practices of 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.

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

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. "Members of the Chitimacha tribe marched through the city conducting a Calumet Ceremony, or a Peace Pipe Ceremony. They sang, danced, made speeches, and touched each other while sharing a pipe to celebrate peace amongst each other. A similar celebration was adopted by slaves who famously met at Congo Square." "The African American communities adopted aspects of Native culture such as their dancing techniques and their innate feather designs. They incorporated these elements into already existent parts of their culture- predominately their West African and Afro-Caribbean song and dance." The first Mardi Gras Indians suited up and 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. They add animals Native Americans hold sacred beaded into their regalia and pay homage to Indigenous people for helping their ancestors escape from slavery. An article from the Louisiana State Museum explains the American Indian influence in Mardi Gras Indian culture. "The foundation of Black masking Indian visual storytelling is rooted in Native American resistance. Many of their suits showcase battle scenes depicting victorious Native Americans at war with U.S. soldiers." An article from UNESCO explains why Black Americans mask as Native people because they are "...asserting dignity and respect for Indian resistance to white domination."

A New Orleans newspaper, Verite News, explains 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 the suits of Mardi Gras Indians.

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" and was most likely composed of members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. 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 explains 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.

Similar Pan-American carnival celebrations

Maracatu festival in Brazil

Scholars noted the similar musical, dance, and regalia practices of Black people in the African diaspora. An article from Tulane University explains: "It is generally agreed that the Mardi Gras Indian tradition has strong Afro-Caribbean folk roots. Many observers and scholars perceive specific parallels with costumes and music of the junkanoo parades of the Bahamas, and some street celebrations in Haiti. In a broader sense the Mardi Gras Indians represent one of many reflections of New Orleans' on-going status as an epicenter of African cultural retention in America. The Indians utilize many shared traits of African and African-American music, include call-and-response, syncopation, polyrhythm with a unifying time-line, melisma, the encouragement of spontaneity, and the extremely porous boundary between performers and audiences."

During the Haitian Revolution, French slaveholders fled the island of Haiti and brought their slaves to New Orleans. Enslaved Haitians influenced the culture of enslaved Black Americans in New Orleans that also contributed to the carnival culture of Mardi Gras Indians. In 1809, nearly 10,000 people, free and enslaved, from present-day Dominican Republic immigrated to New Orleans. The Dominican Republic was colonized by the Spanish and they trafficked Yoruba people to the island for enslaved labor. Enslaved Yoruba people's masquerade culture of Egungun syncretized with New Orleans enslaved communities further contributing to the Mardi Gras Indian culture. The cultural influences of Yoruba people are prevalent in the Americas as Egungun masquerade celebrations influenced Black carnivals and costume making in African descended communities in the diaspora. 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 noted other Black people in the diaspora 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 and different styles across the diaspora.

Mardi Gras Indians are a part of the carnival festival culture in the diaspora. Black people in the Americas create their own regalia using art and symbolism from West-Central African beadwork and colors that blends with Native American culture. The festivals performed tell a story about their ancestors escaping slavery on the Underground Railroad. An article from the New Yorker explains how a "tribe" of Mardi Gras Indians called, Young Seminole Hunters, sculpt elaborate suits to honor the roles the Seminole people and other Native American nations had on the Underground Railroad in liberating enslaved Black people. Mardi Gras Indians are informing the public about Black history through their regalia, music, and songs.

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

The regalia of Mardi Gras Indians has been defined by scholars as traditional African-American folk art; it is a combination of African "dress art" inspired by Native American regalia. The beadwork of their regalia has influences from West African beadwork with Native American influences. Mardi Gras Indians are a part of the Black Arts tradition.

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. 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. Uptown New Orleans "tribes" tend to have more pictorial and African-inspired suits; downtown "tribes" have more 3D suits with heavy Native American influences.

The suits are revealed on Super Sunday and rival professional costume designers. Even though men dominate women can become Mardi Gras "tribes" Indian "Queens" who make their own regalia and masks. The suits incorporate volume, giving the clothing a sculptural sensibility. Darryl Montana, son of the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas "Hunters" ,"tribes" states that the suits each year cost around $5,000 in materials that can include up to 300 yards of down feather trimming. The suits can take up to a year to complete as each artist needs to order materials, design the layout, sew and bead. The beadwork is entirely done by hand and features a combination of color and texture. Some of the suits are displayed in museums throughout the country.

Author Cynthia Becker explains their suits "...express people's religious beliefs, historical pride, and racial heritage." Mardi Gras Indian Cherice Harrison-Nelson's 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. To continue this practice for younger generations, in 2024, the Arts New Orleans’ Young Artist Movement provides funding for New Orleans young Black artists to create suits to continue the Mardi Gras Indian tradition.

Cultural designs

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

Native American

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

Native American cultural elements incorporated are the headdresses and feathers. An article by author Becker explains: "Mardi Gras Indian headdresses resembled the so-called war bonnets worn by Native American chiefs and warriors in the Plains region, among the Sioux, Crow, Blackfoot, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Plains Cree. Despite the name, these headdresses were typically worn by Native Americans on ceremonial occasions rather than into battle. Plains Indian men wearing such "war bonnets" were the frequent subjects of late nineteenth century photographers and often appeared on postcards and other forms of widely circulating popular media, which came to represent the archetypal "classic" Native American. The fact that the headdresses worn by Black Indians clearly drew on those worn by Native American men from the northern Plains rather than from the southeastern United States, such as the Choctaw and the Houma, raises both historical and interpretive questions."

Some of the Mardi Gras Black Indians' regalia is influenced on inaccurate representations of Native Americans and their cultures. Not all Native American nations wear war bonnets. The Indigenous people who helped enslaved Black Americans escape from slavery were from Southeastern Native American tribes. Southeastern Woodland people do not wear war bonnets. The Black Spiritual church movement in New Orleans in the 1920s may have influenced the regalia of Mardi Gras Indians. Black people were inspired by Native American resistance and their fight against white U.S. cavalry soldiers. Some African Americans believe they can call on the spirit of Sauk leader Black Hawk for peace and justice.

African and Afro-Caribbean

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

Over the years some Mardi Gras Indians began to incorporate 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 is a Black American in Louisiana and chooses to incorporate designs from Africa and the African diaspora because his DNA is African. Harris' decorative aesthetic is reflected in the design work of Bambara and Mandinka cultures in West Africa with the use of animistic designs, raffia, and feathers. Demond Melancon incorporates Rastafarian colors, red, green, and gold into his suit, and beads into his regalia historical people associated with the religion and important in the movement such as Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I and Empress Menen Asfaw. By sewing these Black figures into his suits, he conjures their spirits. The Rastafarian movement inspired Eric Burt to bead cultural symbols from the religion. What inspired Black New Orleans to incorporate Rastafarian symbols into their suits was a visit by Haile Selassie I to New Orleans in 1954. Some Black Mardi Gras Indians are Rastafarian and display this in their music and regalia.

Some Black maskers practice 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 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 turn to the Yoruba religion for inspiration in their designs. They blend European parading traditions and fuse the Yoruba orisha (divine spirit) Oshun sacred imagery with the designs of their suits. Other maskers adapt Pan-African, Black Power, and Egyptian iconography into their regalia. 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

Indians' suits also include Haitian Vodou 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 of Voodoo 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 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 African American masking Indians recently incorporated symbols and Islamic religious beliefs into their suits: Floyd Edwards made a breastplate with 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. The dances and music performed by Mardi Gras Indians have been described by scholars as African performances in New Orleans. Black Americans have preserved their West-Central African culture by way of decorative folk art, music, and dance. Historian of Black Studies Joseph E. Holloway, also 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 the diaspora and in Mardi Gras Indian communities. Igbo masquerade dancers are an all-male fraternal organization. Researchers explain this connection: "Joyce Jackson and Fehintola Mosadomi have pinpointed the origins of the Black Mardi Gras Indian carnival tradition from the colonial encounters 'between black and red men, the Afro-Caribbean ties to Trinidad, Cuba, and Haiti, the links to West African dance and musical forms, the social hypothesis stressing fraternal African-American bonds in the face of oppression.'" Yoruba 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 shown when Mardi Gras Indians bead images of ancestors and Black historical people into their suits to honor and conjure their spirits. Their beadwork is West African in origin, and beading is a spiritual experience for Black New Orleanians as they believe they go into a trance or a meditative state 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. Author Brown explains how the Historic New Orleans Collections Museum partner with the city's Black arts community to preserve their culture. "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."

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 "tribal" flag. Closest to the "Big Chief" is the "Wildman" who usually carries a symbolic weapon. Finally, there is the "Big Chief." The "Big Chief" 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 "tribes." They use hodgepodge languages loosely based on different African dialects. Some call their dialect a Creole patois. 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 "tribes" 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.

Violence

Mardi Gras Indian getting ready

In the early days of the Indians, Mardi Gras was a day of both reveling and bloodshed. "Masking" and parading was a time to settle grudges. This part of Mardi Gras Indian history is immortalized in James Sugar Boy Crawford's song, "Jock O Mo" (better known and often covered as "Iko Iko"), based on their taunting chants. However, 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 are not plagued by violence; instead, they base their fights over the "prettiness" of their suits.

In popular culture

• The HBO series Treme features one krewe 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.

Concerns about appropriation

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

This practice has been criticized as being redface, that is, portraying stereotypical caricatures of Native Americans. The cultural performances of Mardi Gras Indians are misunderstood and labeled as appropriation. The Mardi Gras Indian tradition is rooted in African-American spirituality. Recent scholarship on the history and culture of Mardi Gras Indians explains the performances are not stereotypical but have a history in racial discrimination. White Mardi Gras participants excluded Black people from wearing masks, as an act of resistance, they put "war paint" on their faces to hide their identities. In the mid 20th century, in the uptown French Quarter of the city, white Mardi Gras participants did not allow Black people to attend in carnivals. African Americans who did participate experienced police brutality. Black Mardi Gras Indians started creating their own carnivals and celebrations in Black neighborhoods. Each community made up their own "tribes" of Mardi Gras Indians. Their regalia resembles West-Central African and Afro-Caribbean designs than designs seen in Native American regalia.

Authors Karen Williams and Ann Dupont write that Black Americans "mask" as Native Americans to secretly practice and express their African heritage. Williams says: "Masking Indian allows the African-American to 'safely' call attention to his likeness to the Indian, at the same time veiling from the dominant white culture what he is actually doing - flamboyantly expressing his African ancestry". During the era of slavery, slave laws and the Code Noir forbade enslaved and free people from practicing their cultures from Africa. After emancipation, white Americans continued to believe African cultures were inferior. Black Americans practiced their African traditions by syncretizing them with European and Native American cultures which created a creole tradition expressed during carnival season. According to author Ann Dupont the reason African Americans mask as Native Americans is because, "The Indian masking tradition is used by the black working-class males of the tribes to metaphorically express the 'exotically marginalized' position of the Native American Indian and the African American by using mediums of expression deeply rooted in African heritage."

An article from Tulane University argues Mardi Gras Indians are not practicing appropriation but cultural appreciation because of the cultural ties between Black Americans and Native Americans during slavery. Some Indigenous nations provided refuge for freedom seekers, which freedom seeking Africans gained an appreciation and understanding of Native cultures. The beadwork, drumbeats, and aprons worn by Mardi Gras Indians resembles the cultures in Africa. Author 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...'" Williams further explained that for Black people Mardi Gras is not about getting drunk and having fun it is a religious and spiritual experience experienced in music, songs, and dancing. However, some authors describe the actions of Black people putting on red "war paint" is based on negative stereotypes of Native Americans.

West Indian parades influenced carnivals in New Orleans.

New Orleans filmmaker Jonathan Isaac Jackson believes the Black masking Indian tradition is not cultural appropriation. He said: "'Is this appropriation?' It's not, because it has been proven that there were African slaves and Native Americans who intermarried, so a lot of African Americans have Native American blood. It's not appropriation." Jackson has shown through his films the syncretism of West African and Native American cultures that created the Black masking Indian tradition. Jackson was concerned that white people were appropriating the tradition. Jackson said: "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 work with lawyers to put copyrights on their creations to prevent people from profiting off their designs.

Demond Melancon is a Mardi Gras Indian and suggests that the name of this cultural tradition needs to change to that of where this practice originated. Melancon says: "the culture needs to evolve into what it really is. It's been a hidden culture for 250 years and you have to know where it really comes from." He notes that the masking tradition during Mardi Gras originated in Africa. He believes the name of this tradition should be changed to "Black maskers" because this cultural practice has ties to African masking traditions. People confuse the Mardi Gras Indians with original Native Americans because of the word "Indian" in their name. Although New Orleanians understand that Black masking Indians should not be confused with actual Native Americans, Melancon wants the name change to avoid this misunderstanding.

Native Americans concerns about Mardi Gras Indians portraying them as a stereotype is justified. "Indian Red" is a song considered an anthemic sound of tradition. Some Mardi Gras Indians decided to drop the words "Indian Red" because it is offensive to Indigenous people. Minstrel shows in the 19th and early 20th centuries portrayed Black and Native people in negative ways. Stage performers wore blackface or redface and mocked the cultures of people of color. There was a series of shows that toured the United States called the Noble Savage wave for entertainers to perform as a stereotype of a Native American. Warner McCary was a former slave who escaped slavery in Natchez and took on a Native American persona of "Okah Tubbee," and wore a wig and feathers, buckskin shirt, leggings with fringe, and moccasins. He was a popular performer in New Orleans. American audiences desired more entertainers to perform as Native people. Imagery of Indigenous people was employed as a theme in carnivals in New Orleans and was placed on costumes and used in parades since the 18th century. However author Kalamu ya Salaam, and scholars Maurice Martinez and Jeroen Dewulf, argue 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 Caribbean cultures influenced the Mardi Gras Indian tradition.

Some Native Americans regard the Mardi Gras Indians tradition as a form of cultural appropriation. The activist Adrienne Keene (Cherokee Nation) has written that "The history of Mardi Gras Indians comes out of a history of shared oppression and marginality between the Black and Native residents" and therefore is unsure whether the tradition constitutes cultural appropriation, but says that the tradition makes her and other Native Americans uncomfortable. 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." Adrienne Keene states the tradition developed from a shared history between African Americans and American Indians and says the tradition may have evolved "outside of the realm of cultural appropriation into a distinct culture and community."

According to author David Guss in the article, Whose Skin Is This, Anyway? The Gran Poder and Other Tales of Ethnic Cross-Dressing, that when Black Americans dress or "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 argues Black people are not ridiculing or making a parody of 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". Author Michael Smith states the culture of Black masking Indians instills "a deep-seated African ethnic pride in the black working-class community."

"Tribes" of the Mardi Gras Indian Nation

The names of "tribes" indicate their ancestry. Some Black Americans in New Orleans descend from Senegalese people in West Africa and other African ethnic groups. Others have some Native American ancestry. Names of "tribes" with the word Seminole in their name tells the story of enslaved people who escaped slavery and found refuge in the Seminole Nation. During parades, some Nations 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

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