Every year, on Mardi Gras morning, something extraordinary emerges from the backstreets 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-sewn 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. On this Easter Sunday, you'll meet the artists and musicians preserving the culture and take in the sights and sounds of one of America's last true secret societies.
If you're lucky enough to find them, you'll discover a vibrant tapestry of African, Caribbean and Native American threads, 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.
Chawaa - that's Big Chief Demond Melancon of the Young Seminole Hunters announcing his arrival.
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Big Chief Demond Melancon: Chawaa. Who the best? Who got the best beadwork? Who got the best rhinestones? Who can sing the best? Who got the biggest tribe? Who don't. That's what it is.
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 Demond meets another big chief, they square off in a mock battle, competing to show whose suit is, in their words, "the prettiest."
We saw Demond face down tribes all over the city.
Bill Whitaker: What just happened back there? It looked like he just bowed out.
Big Chief Demond Melancon: [Laughs]
Bill Whitaker: But you won.
Big Chief Demond Melancon: Yeah, I think I did.
Bill Whitaker: You were the prettiest?
Big Chief Demond Melancon: Yeah, yeah. We on fire. We on fire. We on fire.
Bill Whitaker: Who are you on Mardi Gras day?
Big Chief Demond: When I put that suit on I'm Big Chief Demond Melancon.
Bill Whitaker: Is that different from the Demond–
Big Chief Demond: That's it--
Bill Whitaker: --who's sittin' here in front of me now?
Big Chief Demond: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.
Bill Whitaker: How different?
Big Chief Demond: Somebody that's ready to honor everything that I was taught by my elders. And I'm ready to kill you dead with a needle and thread.
Big Chief Demond Melancon and Bill Whitaker
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Needle and thread to do the work of his heart and hands. Big Chief Demond and his wife Alicia, meticulous as surgeons, sew 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.
Bill Whitaker: What, to you, makes a suit pretty?
Big Chief Demond: The hookup.
Bill Whitaker: What do you mean?
Big Chief Demond: 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 beadwork. That's the perfection of knowing your hook up – if you that good.
Bill Whitaker: Oh wow.
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 Cinque.
This panel shows when the Africans won their freedom in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bill Whitaker: Look at this.
Big Chief Demond: --John Quincy Adam[s]. He was one of the lawyers on the case.
Bill Whitaker: My God.
Bill Whitaker: So you're doing this, like, nonstop.
Big Chief Demond: I sew from 6 in the morning to 12 at night.
Bill Whitaker: And this is every day?
Big Chief Demond: Every day. Every day.
Bill Whitaker: Why?
Big Chief Demond: Hmm– that's-- man. It's-- it-- without these beads I couldn't breathe.
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 Demond 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 cost $25,000. But this flamboyant display is not a beauty pageant, it's the flowering of deep roots.
Big Chief Demond: The community is what makes me-- it's my fuel, the people.
Bill Whitaker: Your fuel?
Big Chief Demond: Yeah. It fuels the fire because you're doin' it for them. Like, you do this for your community and your people.
Big Chief Howard Miller: It is the greatest kept secret in America and throughout the world today is the Mardi Gras Indian culture. These cultures date back to the slavery days.
Big Chief Howard Miller
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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.
Bill Whitaker: How would you explain the Mardi Gras Indians to people who don't have a clue what they're about?
Big Chief Howard Miller: Well we wasn't allowed to go to those big parades and stuff. So this, in our community, was about uplifting our people in a proudly manner.
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.
Big Chief Howard Miller: Because here in America, especially here in the South, everything about Africa was forbidden. So we went behind our masks as Indians to practice our culture.
Bill Whitaker: Was it easy to join a tribe?
Big Chief Howard Miller: No, it wasn't.
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.
Big Chief Howard Miller: 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. I–
Bill Whitaker: Wouldn't even let you in the gate?
Big Chief Howard Miller: No, I had to stay outside the yard while he go in there. Eventually I got on the porch. And I was watching all this here magic with the suits and what they was doing. And it started to rainstorm, thunder, lightning, raining hard. I'm getting wet. And the chief said, "That boy still on the porch?" And somebody said, "Yup." "Tell that boy to come on in here." That's how I got in the house.
We visited the home of Joseph Pierre Boudreaux, 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.
Joseph Pierre Boudreaux, better known as Big Chief Monk of the Golden Eagles tribe
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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 onto the community and legacy and is preparing for his 72nd year of masking.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it, let the world know that we're here and we've been here. We ain't just got here. We've been here.
We joined the Boudreauxs in a sewing circle before Mardi Gras. For decades, Big Chief Monk sewed suits for his children and grandchildren. This year they gathered and helped him sew his.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: My whole family's talented, you know, by just sittin' there watchin' me for all these years, you know, as kids. They were always right there while I was sewin', sittin' right there.
All those long hours of sewing inspired a song 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, J'Wan, often sang back up. We met them, Monk's daughter, Wynoka, and grandson, Marwan, at one of Monk's favorite New Orleans clubs, Tipitina's.
Bill Whitaker: What's his impact on the culture?
Joseph Boudreaux Jr.: The impact that Michael Jordan had on basketball. I'll put it like that–
Wynoka Boudreaux: Yeah, it's like that.
J'Wan Boudreaux: Like, you can't mention Mardi Gras without Monk, our chief.
Wynoka Boudreaux: Yeah. I never saw him take a break. Like I never sa- I never saw him say, "Oh, this year I'm not comin'."
Joseph Boudreaux Jr.: 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 sews an Indian suit and they don't put on his music.
Mardi Gras Indians
60 Minutes
Big Chief Demond included.
He's moved by the music and the weight of his calling. The expense almost left him destitute.
Bill Whitaker: You sacrificed a lot to make these suits.
Big Chief Demond: Uh-huh
Bill Whitaker: You lost a house because you were so consumed with making your suit?
Big Chief Demond: Yeah. Yeah. Because it's-- it's hard.
Bill Whitaker: I know it's hard. But you-- you–
Big Chief Demond: It's hard–
Bill Whitaker: Losing a house didn't make you stop?
Big Chief Demond: What? Why? Why?
Bill Whitaker: 'Cause you got put out of your house.
Big Chief Demond: No, indeed. I-- I-- I'm preservin' a culture.
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 MardiGras.
After working through the night, Big Chief Demond 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.
Big Chief Demond: The spirits come down every time we put it on, especially with me. You know, my elders lived through me. And it's a openin' of the gates.
Bill Whitaker: What do you mean?
Big Chief Demond: That means they came down, they come in through me to walk in their shoes on the streets of New Orleans like they taught us. So what we doin' is we're preservin' it for that next generation to be able to walk like I walked.
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.
Bill Whitaker: You think your success in the art world will encourage a younger generation to carry on with this culture?
Big Chief Demond: I pray it does. And I pray one of 'em picks up a needle and wanna do what I do, 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.
Bill Whitaker: What's it like for you to see your tribe march off and you are not joining them this year?
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: Well, I know that time is gonna come but I didn't know when.
Bill Whitaker: But you got to see this day.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: Yeah, right. Well, I was gonna see this day.
And the day is coming he told us, for him to pass his crown on to the next chief.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux: If you don't keep it going, if you lose it, it's gone forever, it's finished. And that thing just disappear? Not here in New Orleans.
Bill Whitaker: Not here in New Orleans.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux:: No, uh-huh. We keep it rolling.
Keeping it rolling and chanting and showing off — a culture in full bloom, too pretty, too rooted to fade … just yet.
Produced by Nichole Marks. Associate producer, Emily Cameron. Broadcast associate, Mariah Johnson. Edited by Warren Lustig
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