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Dancing in Congo Square, 1886. Mardi Gras Indians have been practicing their traditions in New Orleans since at least the 18th century. The colony of New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, on land inhabited by Chitimacha Tribe, and within the first decade 5,000 enslaved Africans were trafficked to the colony.
Mardi Gras Indian gangs have existed since the early 20th Century. Each gang performs its own original songs and dances on Mardi Gras Day, on "Super Sunday" (the Sunday before St. Patrick's Day) and at other functions in the community. The "Big Chief", the "Spy Boy", the "Flag Boy" and several other roles or offices are important to the Mardi ...
Chief Allison "Tootie" Montana (December 16, 1922 – June 27, 2005), a lather by trade, was a New Orleans cultural icon who acted as the Mardi Gras Indian "Chief of Chiefs" for over 50 years. [1] [2] Tootie is revered in the Mardi Gras Indian culture as the Big Chief. Tootie was the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Tribe and made the culture ...
The practice of exposing female breasts in exchange for Mardi Gras beads, however, was mostly limited to tourists in the upper Bourbon Street area. [5] [58] In the crowded streets of the French Quarter, generally avoided by locals on Mardi Gras Day, flashers on balconies cause crowds to form on the streets.
The first North American Mardi Gras was celebrated in Alabama—not Louisiana. French-Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville arrived in what is now modern day Mobile, Alabama on Fat ...
Mardi is the French word for Tuesday, and gras means "fat." This name comes from the custom of eating all the fatty, rich foods in the house prior to Lent in order to prepare for fasting and ...
The Wild Tchoupitoulas were originally a group of Mardi Gras Indians formed in the early 1970s by George "Big Chief Jolly" Landry. Landry, with his self-identified Choctaw heritage, [1] had been an active performer in the Mardi Gras Indian styling for a number of years.
Many Indian gangs support the bands of traditional second-line parades or jazz funerals with percussion instruments. [36] Larry Bannock, also known as "Big Chief Larry Bannock", is a Mardi Gras Indian from Gert Town who grew up on Edinburgh Street. Bannock began Indian masking with the Gert Town crew "Golden Star" in 1972.