Mardi Gras Indians carry on tradition in painstakingly crafted suits
Every year, Black residents of New Orleans don stunning, handmade suits on Mardi Gras day that are sewn in secret for the better part of a year. It's a tradition they say honors ancestors.
Big Chief Demond Melancon is so devoted to making the elaborate, beaded suits he wears on Mardi Gras day that once it lost him his home.
Melancon participates in New Orleans' Black Masking tradition, better known as the Mardi Gras Indians. Broken up into groups, what they call tribes, Melancon and other members of the community roam some of the city's historically Black neighborhoods each year on Mardi Gras day, chanting and squaring off in mock battles, in competition to show whose suit is, in their words, the prettiest.
It's a culture that has been passed down for generations, and tribe members spend countless hours and thousands of dollars sewing and adorning their suits with tiny beads, plumes and rhinestones over the course of a year, all with the goal of preserving a tradition that historians say dates back to the 1800s. This year, Melancon wore a 10-foot-tall suit that weighed 120 pounds; he needed a U-Haul to move from place to place.
Putting on the suit is transformative. Melancon becomes "somebody that's ready to honor everything that I was taught by my elders," he said. "And I'm ready to kill you dead with a needle and thread."
The battles between tribes are a competition of artistry and talent, but are rooted in something much deeper.
Where did the Mardi Gras Indians tradition come from?