Mardi Gras Indians - New Orleans

House in the 7th Ward

It doesn't matter how many times you've seen them.  It doesn't matter how much you've studied them.  It doesn't matter if you have one as a friend.  It doesn't matter how smart you think you are, or how simpatico.  Unless you are a Mardi Gras Indian, you don't know anything about them.

That's what Brian told me after they went to the Backstreet Cultural Center.  I couldn't disagree when he told me.  After all, whenever I try to explain it, I always say, "The Indians just do what they do.  They don't do it for you, they don't do it for me.  They do it because that's what they do.  You should just feel privileged to witness them, if you get the chance."

I thought about Brian when I was reading this article on the St. Joseph Night and the Mardi Gras Indians.  I don't know the guy who wrote it, but I kind of know what he's talking about.  I don't know if I agree with all his observations, but he wrote this in 1997, and he's from Detroit.  

The next lot over in the 7th Ward

I quoted Brian the other day as I was giving a walking tour of our neighborhood.  As I was talking about the boat that's been washed up in the Musicians' Union Hall parking lot since Katrina, a guy with a faraway look wearing Mardi Gras beads walked by.  He had gray hair and an unkempt beard.  He looked like he'd seen his mother die.  

"Who's that?" one of our group asked.

That man is a shaman.  He knows more things about this neighborhood than I ever will, secret things, the kind of things that happen after dark.  His name is Jean.    

A votre santé,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.