Mardi Gras Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

"Nobody ain't never gonna find the code," Big Chief Larry Bannock once defiantly argued about the secrets of the Mardi Gras Indians. Famously described by Henry Rightor in 1900 as bands running along the streets on Fat Tuesday "whooping, leaping, brandishing their weapons and, anon, stopping in the middle of a street to go through the movements of a mimic war-dance, chanting the while in rhythmic cadence an outlandish jargon," the Mardi Gras Indians' performances are, indeed, among the most enigmatic traditions of New Orleans's annual carnival celebration. Due to the lack of historical sources, it is tempting to relate these "black Indians" to Buffalo Bill's touring Wild West shows. Although I do not wish to deny that these late nineteenth-century shows have been part of the stream of influences that shaped the Mardi Gras Indians, the fact that similar traditions developed in places where Buffalo Bill's shows were never performed makes it more likely that New Orleans's "black Indians" represent a specific variant of a broader phenomenon rather than a uniquely Louisianian product. In fact, Léon Beauvallet observed in Cuba in 1856 how some blacks in a parade in honor of a king "had transformed themselves into South American savages, Red Skins, or Apaches," and in his description of a carnival celebration in Trinidad in 1847, Charles Day noticed that some black "Spanish peons from the Main . . . daubed with red ochre" had been brought over to the island from Venezuela to participate in the parade as Indian warrior bands with stick fighters, kings, queens, chiefs, medicine men, ambassadors, and other dignitaries. One way of approaching the existing scholarship with new theories despite the paucity of historical sources is by using a comparative perspective. Barbara Bridges, Samuel Kinser, Michael P. Smith, Ned Sublette, and others have broken new ground in the analysis of the Mardi Gras Indians by making connections to a series of Caribbean traditions. This article owes much to their pioneering work but tries to make further progress by adding new research materials from Brazil to the analysis. The first three sections serve to highlight parallels between New Orleans's "black Indians" and the many variants of dances, parades, and paratheatrical performances known in Brazil as "Mouros e Cristãos" (Moors and Christians). In section four, it is argued that this connection does not represent a singular case but rather a broader pattern that may also apply to New Orleans. This claim is supported by three theories―each corresponding to a different "transformation" of St. James―that could explain the remarkable parallels between Louisiana's Mardi Gras Indians and Brazil's Moors and Christians.