FIVE-A-LIVE ! MARDI GRAS

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every year on Mardi Gras morning, something extraordinary emerges from the back streets of New Orleans, groups of black revelers most tourists will never see. They call themselves Mardi Gras Indians or Black Masking Indians, and they roam the city's neighborhoods in dazzling hand-sown suits. The tradition dates to the 1800s as a way to honor their ancestors, and according to Mardi Gras Indian lore, is rooted in profound respect for Native Americans said to have sheltered enslaved Africans who had escaped. It's an expression of joy, protest, and pride passed from generation to generation, take in the sights and sounds of one of America's last true secret societies. Part of the cultural gumbo that is New Orleans. These extravagant suits, plumed, bejeweled, beaded, and sequined, are handcrafted in secret for an entire year to be unveiled on Mardi Gras Day. Chawa, that's Big Chief Damon Melanson of the Young Seminole Hunters, announcing his arrival.

SPEAKER_06 1:31

Chawa, who the best? Who got the best B work? Who got the best rhinestones? Who could sing the best? Who got the biggest tribe? Who don't? That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

There are dozens of groups calling themselves tribes. The leader is known as the Big Chief, who, along with his big queen and their crew, strut through historically black neighborhoods searching for other tribes. When Big Chief Damon meets another Big Chief, they square off and mock battle, competing to show whose suit is, in their words, the prettiest. We saw Damon face down tribes all over the city. What just happened back there? Look like he just.

SPEAKER_06 2:34

Is that different from the Damon who's sitting here in front of you? Yes, indeed. Yes, how different? Somebody that's ready to honor everything that I was taught by my elders. And I'm ready to kill you there with the needle and tread.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Needle and thread to do the work of his heart and hands. Big Chief Damond and his wife Alicia, meticulous as surgeons, sow beads the size of chia seeds on a canvas and stitch rhinestones in place with dental floss. Painting with beads, making artwork for his suit. What to you makes a suit pretty? The hookup.

SPEAKER_06 3:11

What do you mean? How it's laid out, how the velvet gets around it, how you break the feathers, how you manipulate the feathers, how many rows of rhinestones you have around the beework. That's the perfection of knowing your hookup if you're that good. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

This year's suit tells the story of the Amistad, a slave ship seized by the captive Africans in 1839, led by a man called Sin Kay. This panel shows when the Africans won their freedom in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.

SPEAKER_06 3:43

Look at this. John Quincy Adam, he was one of the lawyers on the case.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

My God.

SPEAKER_06 3:49

So you're doing this like non-stop. So some six in the morning to twelve at night. And this is every day. Every day. Every day. Why? Hmm. I said, man. Shh. This it without these beads, I couldn't breathe.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

And every breath is hard-earned. It can take thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to design and sew a suit. For years, Big Chief Damond was laying concrete and cooking lobsters, pouring all his spare time and money into his creations. He now makes a living as an artist. This year's suit costs$25,000. But this flamboyant display is not a beauty pageant. It's the flowering of deep roots.

SPEAKER_06 4:34

The community is what makes me. It's my fuel. The people. Your fuel. Yeah, it fuels the fire. Because you're doing it for them. Like you do this for your community and your people.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

It is the greatest kept secret in America. Venture out there, well, today is the Mardi Gras Indian culture. This culture is date back to slavery days. I have hope.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Howard Miller is the president of the Mardi Gras Indian Council, a governing body for the tribes, and chief of the Creole Wild West. He told us it's a culture shaped by resistance to oppression and sustained by resilience. How would you explain the Mardi Gras Indians to people who don't have a clue what they're about?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Well, we weren't allowed to go to those big parades and stuff. So this in our community was about a lifting our people in a proudly manner.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

There's no one definitive origin story, but historians have found references to the tradition dating back to the mid-1800s. According to stories passed down through generations, when enslaved people escaped New Orleans, Native Americans in the bayous gave them refuge. Today, many tribe members claim indigenous and African roots. Masking, some say, began as a way to honor those indigenous tribes while disguising or masking their African identity.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Was it easy to join a tribe? No, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

In 1969, it took then 12-year-old Howard Miller six weeks just to get in the door of a big chief's house, the tribe's headquarters.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I had a friend of mine, he was in it, and I would go around there with him trying to get in, but they wouldn't let me in the gate. Eventually I got on the porch. And I was watching all this here magic with the Seuss and what they was doing. And started rainstorm, thunder, lightning, raining hard, and getting wet. And the chief said, Is that boy still on the porch? And somebody said, Yep, tell that boy to come on in here. That's how I got in the house.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

We visited the home of Joseph Pierre Boudreau, better known as Big Chief Monk of the Golden Eagles tribe. Big Chiefs aren't just heads of their tribes, they're mentors and community leaders, and Big Chief Monk is one of the most respected. But the working class neighborhoods that sustain the tribes have been thinned and scattered by Hurricane Katrina and gentrification. 84-year-old Monk Boudreaux is determined to hold on to the community and legacy and is preparing for his 72nd year of masking.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

We can't do it.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

In the 1970s, Monk was one of the first to marry Mardi Gras Indian chants to New Orleans Funk. His albums earned two Grammy nominations. His son Joseph and grandson Juwan often sang backup. We met them, Monk's daughter Winoka and grandson Marwan at one of Monk's favorite New Orleans clubs, Tipatinas. What's his impact on the culture?

SPEAKER_04 8:43

The impact that Michael Jordan had on basketball. Yeah, yeah. I'll put it like that. Like that. Like you can't mention Mardi Gras without Monk. Yeah. Our achievements.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

I never saw him take a break. Like, I never said, I never saw him say, oh, this year I'm not coming.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

You know, my father, he took something that was made for the culture in the streets, and he was one of the pioneers that took it global. There's not a person in the city of New Orleans that sold an Indian suit and they don't put on his music.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Big Chief Demond included.

SPEAKER_06 9:23

He do me something.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

He's moved by the music and the weight of his calling. The expense almost left him destitute. You sacrificed a lot to make these suits. You lost a house because you were so consumed with making your suit.

SPEAKER_06 9:41

Yeah, yeah. Because it's it's hard. I know it's hard, but you losing a house didn't make you stop. What? Why? Why? Because you got put out of your house. No, indeed. Preserving the culture.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

And the fine art world has taken notice. His suits and beaded portraits have been displayed in museums and galleries all over the world. It's allowed him to buy a new house, every inch of which was covered with plumes and patches the evening before Mardi Gras.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Y'all ready?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

After working through the night, Big Chief Damond emerged transformed in a suit that stood more than 10 feet tall and weighed 120 pounds. He used a U-Haul to move from place to place, but he tells us there was something else carrying him along.

SPEAKER_06 10:42

That means they came down, they come into me to walk in their shoes on the streets of New Orleans, like they taught us. So what we're doing is we're preserving it for that next generation to be able to walk like I walk. It's gonna change my life.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

The spirits, it seems, are opening other gates for him. His work will be featured next month at the Venice Biennale in Italy, the world's most prestigious art exhibition. You think your success in the art world will encourage a younger generation to carry on with this culture?

SPEAKER_06 11:16

I pray it does. And I pray one of them picks up Anita and won't do what I do.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

You know, preserving tradition for the next generation. We heard that a lot here. It's what Big Chief Monk lives for. But this year he was too weak to march with his tribe. Just before Mardi Gras, he was diagnosed with cancer. But he came out on his porch to see the tribe off with the Mardi Gras Indians' most sacred hymn. What's it like for you to see your tribe march off and you're not joining them this year?

SPEAKER_05 12:06

Well, I knew that time was gonna come, but I didn't know when. But you got to see this day. Yeah, right. Well, I was gonna see this day.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And the day is coming, he told us, for him to pass his crown on to the next chief.

SPEAKER_05 12:22

Like I say, if you don't keep it going, if you lose it, it's gone forever. You not think this disappeared? Not here in New Orleans. Not here in New Orleans. No.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Keeping it rolling and chanting and showing off. A culture in full bloom, too pretty, too rooted to fade.