Participants call their krewes "tribes" (or "gangs"),[1]: 3 [6] which should not be confused with Native American tribes. Each tribe takes its name from the streets used by their gang.[7] There are more than 40 active tribes, which range in size from half a dozen to several dozen members.[6] 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.[8][9]
The Mardi Gras Indian aesthetic serves as an expression of their culture, religion and spirituality.[10] 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;[6] 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.[11][12]
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.[13] 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".[14]
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.[a] The West-Central African ethnic groups taken to Louisiana during the transatlantic slave trade were Bambara, Gambian, Akan, Fon, Yoruba,[16] 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.[17][18] 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.[19][20][21]
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.[22][23][24] 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.[15][25][1]: 75–90
Black–Indigenous alliances
New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians, 1915
When enslaved Africans escaped, they encountered Indigenous peoples of Louisiana who shared skills and resources with them. New Orleans was surrounded by swamps, bayous, and rivers where a number of maroon settlements formed. In Louisiana, the Underground Railroad went south to maroon camps because the northern free territories and Canada were too far.[26] These maroon camps attacked whites, stole cattle from nearby farms for food, and freed or absorbed other enslaved people. The maroons lived in huts and grew their own food of corn, squash, rice, and herbs. African culture thrived in maroon communities, and Native Americans often helped them by providing food and weapons to defend themselves from whites and slave catchers.[27]
In colonial Louisiana, there was a settlement known as Natanapalle of armed maroons and Indigenous peoples.[28][29] In such spaces, freed and escaped Africans adapted some of the culture of Native Americans.[28][30][31] Whites in Louisiana feared an alliance of Africans and Indigenous people.[32]
In 1729, 280 enslaved Africans joined forces with Natchez people during the "Natchez Revolt" to prevent French colonists from taking Indigenous land for tobacco production. The Natchez killed almost all of the 150 Frenchmen at Fort Rosalie, and only about 20 managed to escape, some fleeing to New Orleans.[33][34] The Natchez spared the enslaved Africans,[35] perhaps due to an affinity between the Natchez and the Africans. Some slaves joined the Natchez, while others took the chance to escape to freedom.[33][36]
Until the mid-1760s, maroon colonies lined the shores of Lake Borgne, just downriver of New Orleans. The maroons controlled many of the canals and back-country passages from Lake Pontchartrain to the Gulf of Mexico, including the Rigolets. The San Malo community was a long-thriving autonomous community.[37] These settlements were eventually eradicated by Spanish militia led by Francisco Bouligny.[38][39] Despite this, people who escaped enslavement in ante-bellum America continued to find refuge and freedom in the areas around New Orleans.[40][41][42]
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.[43][29] 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."[30][44] 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.'"[30] 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.[44]
In the late 18th century, Spanish officials 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 British colonies such as Jamaica.[45] After the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, the port of New Orleans became the center of the slave trade in the United States before the American Civil War. Enslaved people were brought from other southern states to supply the demand for labor on the plantations.[46] In addition, during and after the Haitian Revolution, enslavers fled the island of Hispaniola, bringing their enslaved Africans with them to New Orleans.[47]
In 1810, free and enslaved Haitian refugees came to New Orleans from Cuba, thus doubling the local enslaved population and tripling the population of free people of color. The port received immigrants from Cuba, Germany, Ireland, and the rest of the Caribbean.[48] Carnival cultures from Haiti, Jamaica and other parts of the West Indies blended with festival traditions in local Black communities.[49] Influences such as Jonkonnu, Rara, Gaga, Canboulet, and others came from the West Indies.[50]
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.[51][52] 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.[53][54]
By the 1880s, Becate Batiste, a young creole man of African, French and Choctaw heritage formed the Creole Wild West, in Seventh Ward.[54] Others soon formed their own "tribes". Their visual style, 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.[54][53][6]
Hurricane Katrina
In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed African-American neighborhoods in New Orleans.[55]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.[56]
Culture
In its early history, masking culture resembled the all-male West African secret masquerade societies practiced among the Igbo and Yoruba.[17][57] 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.[58][59][60] 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.[b] 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.[62]: 1960, 2005
Africans in the diaspora have traditionally used masquerade carnivals to protest oppression.[63][30][64] Black carnivals provide a space for African Americans to unite, free from exploitation by white Americans, and represent a rejection of white carnival norms.[c] Author Nikesha Williams writes that for Black people, Mardi Gras is a cultural and a spiritual experience.[66]
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.[67][d]
Language
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.[69]
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[70] 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,[71] Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian communities.[72][73] Black Masking Indians' street performances and festivals are called "second lines".[74] 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.[75]
"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.[76][77][78] 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.[79] 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.[80][81][82] Many maskers describe masking as aiming "to enter the spirit world of possession".[67] 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.[83]
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.[84] 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.[85] 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.[86][87] Some Black masking Indians describe a "successful" masking experience as including "a sensation of being possessed".[54] 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."[88] Some scholars define Mardi Gras Indian culture as a spiritual secret society, a mutual-aid organization, and a social club.[89]
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.[91] 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.[92] 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".[93][94][95] The Calinda dance was integrated into Mardi Gras Indian traditions.[96][97][98] Other dance influences were the chica, an Afro-Caribbean dance,[99] and bamboula, an African derived dance, that were performed at Congo Square by free and enslaved people.[100][101] Historians in New Orleans see the continuation of African, Caribbean, European and Cuban musical and dance influences at Congo Square.[102]
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..."[103]
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 incorporate Mardi Gras Indian traditions into their services, such as conjuring the spirits of Native American resistance leaders such as Black Hawk, White Eagle, Red Cloud, and White Hawk. Many Spiritual churches have altars to Native American spirits, Catholic saints, ancestors, Archangel Michael, and other spirits. In one Spiritual church a three-foot-high Indian statue is decorated with a Mardi Gras Indian headdress and bead patches.[113][114][115] Mardi Gras Indians also attract churchgoers when they perform ring shout dances with percussion in inner city clubs.[116]
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.[117] 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.[116] One church minister reportedly dressed as a Mardi Gras Indian to summon the spirits of Black Hawk and Reverend Adams, resulting in a "séance". Black Hawk symbolizes protest and empowerment for the women in the churches who experience racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination.[118][119][120]
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.[1]: 45–60, 83
Scholars at Tulane University created an online exhibit providing 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 where a number of enslaved Africans sought refuge after escaping captivity.[121][122][123] 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.[e] The first Mardi Gras Indians paraded the streets of New Orleans during the Reconstruction era.[124]
Masking Indians honor the assistance given their ancestors by incorporating American Indian symbols into their carnivals.[125] Native American resistance is a key theme in Mardi Gras Indian performances.[f] Black Mardi Gras Indians tell these stories of African–Indigenous solidarity through their regalia.[127][128][129]
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.[95]: 95 The Buffalo Soldiers fought against the Plains Indians on the Western Frontier. After returning to New Orleans, many ex-soldiers joined popular Wild West shows, such as Buffalo Bill's Wild West.[95]: 96 The show wintered in New Orleans from 1884 to 1885; there was at least one Black cowboy in the show, and numerous Black cowhands. Michael Smith suggests these Buffalo Soldiers could have returned to New Orleans and competed in Wild West shows and carnivals.[130]
On Mardi Gras in 1885, 50 to 60 Plains Indians marched in native dress on the streets of New Orleans. Later that year, 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,[54] Smith suggest they were inspired by (or were former members of) Buffalo Bill's Wild West show instead.[95] 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".[131][132] Mardi Gras Indians dislike Smith's 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".[133][134]
Author Kalamu ya Salaam suggests this interpretation ignores the presence of similar customs arising across the African diaspora, and the city's history of Black and Native resistance against Europeans.[135] Scholar and filmmaker Maurice M. Martinez also suggests that the Mardi Gras Indians predate Eurocentric interpretations of Native Americans presented during Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.[136] The presence of Native American ancestor worship in the city's Spiritual church movement may also have influenced Mardi Gras Indian traditions.[137][138]
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.[44][62]: 1966
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.[95] On Sundays, enslaved African people gathered to sing folk songs, play traditional music, and dance.[95][139] 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."[140]
On these occasions, Mardi Gras Indians would play traditional music using belled wrists and ankle bands, congas, and tambourines.[141] The music of Mardi Gras Indians played at Congo square contributed to the creation of jazz.[142] Mardi Gras Indian music is derived from African polyrhythms and syncopated beats combined with African and Creole languages, and French and European musical influences.[143][144] These African rhythms, such as the Bamboula, have been continued to this day.[g] The traditional New Orleans Black masking Indian song Iko Iko, which emerged around this time, is believed to derive from a combination of the Native American Choctaw and Chickasaw languages, Louisiana Creole, French, and West African languages.[84][147]
Scholars have noted the similar musical, dance, and regalia practices of Black people across the African diaspora.[148][149][h] 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.[150][151] Many of the Dominicans had Yoruba ancestry, and their masquerade culture of Egungun syncretized with the culture of the New Orleans enslaved communities.[151][95]: 80
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, too.[152][153]
Historian Jeroen Dewulf describes similar masking traditions, where Black people dress as Indigenous people, 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 and festivals; they are worn by African chiefs and dancers; and feathers are placed on Traditional African masks to bring in good medicine. These practices continued in the Americas where enslaved Africans and their descendants wear feather headdresses during carnivals.[154][155] The designs of African headdresses blended with headdresses worn by Indigenous people creating unique styles across the diaspora.[156][157][158]
Mardi Gras Indian performances 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 had in liberating enslaved Black people.[159][44]
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.
Many Pan-American carnivals in the African diaspora have performances and regalia which resemble those of Mardi Gras Indians, such as:[160][161]
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.[57][165] 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.[67]
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.[66] While the tradition began as a male right of passage, as were the masquerade traditions in West and Central Africa,[166] today many Black women partake in this tradition as well.[62]: 1960, 2005 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."[68]
Authors Shane Lief and John McCusker have found reports of Native American motifs on costumes and in parades in New Orleans since the 18th century. 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,[167] and removed the words "Indian Red" in their music.[1]: 17–19, 71 [168] Author Michael Smith says that "Indian Red" is a Mardi Gras Indian prayer song that honors various "gang" members past and present, and calls for peace and justice.[169] 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").[170]
Sangamento
An Egungun ceremony in Benin - Scholars suggest the regalia (suits) of Mardi Gras Indians have influences from West African ceremonial cultures.[14]
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, similar to the dance styles of Mardi Gras Indians. During the transatlantic slave trade, Bantu people were enslaved in the Americas. Sangamentos were a brotherhood of men with a semi-underground culture that resembles the Mardi Gras Indian tradition at Congo Square.[171][172][44] 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.[173][174]
Mardi Gras Indian suits cost thousands of dollars in materials alone and can weigh upwards of one hundred pounds (45 kg).[175] A suit usually takes between six and nine months to plan and complete, but can take up to a year.[i] Mardi Gras Indians design and create their own suits; elaborate bead patches depict meaningful and symbolic scenes.[177][178] 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.[7][176][175] 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.[179][180] Some of the suits are displayed in museums throughout the country.[7]
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".[5] 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.[68] 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.[177]
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.[181]
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.[145] Mardi Gras Indians initially 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.[182][183] West African cultural elements include cowrie shells, kente cloth, raffia, and traditional face masks and shields. Researchers have described a Nigerian beading technique in "Uptown styles" while Bakongo influences are seen in the suits of "Downtown styles."[145]
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.[j] The Mardi Gras Indians were inspired by Native American resistance and their fight against white U.S. cavalry soldiers.[186] Some Mardi Gras Indians report that they call on the spirit of Sauk leader Black Hawk for peace and justice.[187][188][189]
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.[1]: 9–10 [184]
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.[1]: 18 [190] Victor Harris, a Black Louisianan, reflects the design work of Bambara and Mandinka cultures with the use of animistic designs, raffia, and feathers.[145]
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.[12] 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.[191]
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.[192] 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.[193][194][195]
The Black Spiritual church movement in New Orleans in the 1920s may have influenced the regalia of Mardi Gras Indians.[196] Some masking Indians practice Catholicism and blend Catholic saints, traditions, and feast days into their Caribbean and African religious practices during Mardi Gras.[197]
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.[198] 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.[90]
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.[199][200]
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.[184] Historian of Black Studies Joseph E. Holloway states that carnivals in New Orleans resemble African-influenced festivals from the Caribbean.[201] 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.[202][203]
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.[k]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.[205][12][206] Beading is often described as a spiritual experience for Black New Orleanians, who have described entering a meditative trance when sewing their suits.[207]
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.[208]
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.[208]
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.[6] Their suits are displayed in museums in Louisiana and the Smithsonian.[8][9]
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.[13] The Mardi Gras Indians traditions are considered a unique artform and ritual which represents New Orleans Black culture.[14]
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.[95] Next comes the "first flag", an ornately dressed Indian carrying a token flag in their gang colours.[95] Closest to the "Big Chief" is the "Wildman" who usually carries a symbolic weapon.[95] 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.[95]
During the march, the Indians dance and sing traditional songs particular to their individual tribes.[209] They use creole dialects or patois, loosely based on different African and European languages.[130][210] 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.[130]
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.[211][212] 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.[90][213][214]
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.[130] 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.[215] He said, "I was going to make them stop fighting with the gun and the knife and start fighting with the needle and thread."[216] Today, the Mardi Gras Indians settle their fights through the "prettiness" of their suits instead of violence.[217][130]
Racism
An Egungun ceremony in Benin - The suits of Mardi Gras Indians have influences from West African ceremonial costumes.[14]
The cultural performances of Mardi Gras Indians are rooted in the history of racial discrimination in New Orleans.[52][86] 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.[218][219][211] 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.[l]
Mardi Gras Indians have continued to experience marginalization and police brutality into the 21st century.[62]: 1966 [220][221] In response, the Mardi Gras Indian Council formed in 1985 to facilitate better coordination between the 32 tribes and their members.[54]
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.[124] In New Orleans, Blacks and Native Americans 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.[66][53][1]: 64–70
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.[53][1]: 64–70 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".[15]
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 they are "an African-American tribe of New Orleans."[221][222] 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".[223]
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.[168]
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.[m] Scholars such as Maurice Martinez and Jeroen Dewulf, and author Kalamu ya Salaam, have said 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 suggest that ultimately Caribbean cultures influenced the Mardi Gras Indian tradition.[224][225][226][227]
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".[228]
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...'[66]
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.' [229]
Mardi Gras Indians have worked with lawyers to copyright their creations and prevent people from profiting off their designs.[230]
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.[221]
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.[231]
Endnotes
^The first enslaved Africans arrived in 1719, and the city quickly became a hub of the slave trade.[15]
^Harrison-Nelson continues, "If the chief is pretty, he's prettier with a queen standing next to him."[61]
^"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.”[57][65]
^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."[68]
^"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."<[124]
^An article from the Louisiana State Museum comments on the American Indian influences 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."[126] An article from UNESCO states why Black Americans mask as Native people because they are "...asserting dignity and respect for Indian resistance to white domination."[125]
^Charles Siler says: "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."[145][146]
^An article from Tulane University suggests: "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."[4]
^Darryl Montana, son of the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas "Hunters" tribe states that the suits each year cost around $5,000 in materials that can include up to 300 yards of down feather trimming.[176]
^Becker states: "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."[184][185]
^Researcher Raphael Njoku says of 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.'"[204]
^Scholar Karen 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". Ann Dupont says: "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."[54]
^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.[1]: 64
^ abDraper, David Elliott (1973). The Mardi Gras Indians: The Ethnomusicology of Black Associations in New Orleans. Tulane University PhD Dissertation.
^Barnett 2007, p. 106. sfn error: no target: CITEREFBarnett2007 (help)
^Monuments, Paper; Frisbie-Calder, Pippin; artist; Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo; narrative. "San Malo Maroons". New Orleans Historical. Retrieved January 28, 2023.
^Din, Gilbert C. (1999). Spaniards, Planters, and enslaved people: The Spanish Regulation of Slavery in Louisiana, 1763–1803. Texas A&M University Press. ISBN0-89096-904-3.
^Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo (1995). Africans in Colonial Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century. Louisiana State University Press. ISBN0-8071-1999-7.
^Ya Salaam, Kalamu. "New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians and Tootie Montana". Folklife in Louisiana. Louisiana Division of the Arts, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism Louisiana Folklife Program. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
^Dewulf, Jeroen (Winter 2019). "The Missing Link between Congo Square and the Mardi Gras Indians? The Anonymous Story of 'The Singing Girl of New Orleans' (1849)". Louisiana History. LX (1): 83–9. JSTORe26864677.
^Laborde, Errol (February 14, 2022). "Black Mardi Gras Culture". New Orleans Magazine. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
^"Mardi Gras Indians". Southeastern Louisiana University. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved October 5, 2024.
^Ya Salaam, Kalamu. "New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians and Tootie Montana". Folklife in Louisiana. Louisiana Division of the Arts, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism Louisiana Folklife Program. Retrieved October 8, 2024.
^Salaam, Kalamu (1997). "He's the Prettiest": A Tribute to Big Chief Allison "Tootie" Montana's 50 years of Mardi Gras Indian Suiting. New Orleans: New Orleans Museum of Art. Print.
^Baum, Dan (2010). Nine Lives (Print ed.). New York: Spiegal Paperbacks.
^Ya Salaam, Kalamu. "New Orleans Mardi Gras Indians and Tootie Montana". Folklife in Louisiana. Louisiana Division of the Arts, Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism Louisiana Folklife Program. Retrieved November 6, 2024.
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. ISBN0-674-01623-8.
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. ISBN9781935754961.
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