Mardi Gras Indians Super Sunday

After postponing a week for weather, it was 80 and sunny for Super Sunday, one of my favorite days of the years. Staggeringly beautiful and steeped in culture and history, the Mardi Gras Indians fill the streets on Super Sunday wearing plumed and beaded suits they spent the year carefully designing and crafting, bead by bead. We wandered past Baby Dolls dancing and families helping their Indians dress before selecting a burger and sausage combo and following the proprietor to a nearby truck making giant adult sno-balls.

Jazz Fest & Book Signing

I’ve gone to Jazz Fest as a music lover and as a volunteer in the beer booth but this was my first time going to sign copies of one of my books – my latest, The Secret of the Other Mother: A Charlotte Reade Mystery. I arrived early and started my day with the White Cloud Hunters Mardi Gras Indians playing traditional Indians songs and closing with my favorite, Indian Red. Just as the stage full of magnificent beadwork and feathers emptied, the Algiers Warriors Mardi Gras Indians parade began dancing past with the New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian Rhythm Section. More amazing beads and feathers!

Mardi Gras Indians Super Sunday 2016

Between Mardi Gras Indians’ Super Sunday, Congo Square Festival, the Class Got Brass battle of the bands, the Pelicans game and the live filming of Tyler Perry’s The Passion, they was plenty to do today but, for once, the choice was easy. The Indians’ elaborately hand-beaded and feathered suits, weighing up to 150 pounds, costing $3000 or more and taking up to a year to design, construct and bead are the most beautiful suits in the world. (For more about the history and traditions of the Indians, click HERE). The parade opened with the Hot 8 Brass Band and the Lady Buck Jumpers then became a stream of rich plumes and intricately beaded stories of the soul. 

Mardi Gras Indians Super Sunday 2015

This was my 6th Mardi Gras Indians Super Sunday and it still shocks my senses. Music swirls with the smell of grilled meats as everyone gathers at A.L. Davis Park to see the Indians’ elaborately crafted suits which weigh up to 150 pounds, cost up to $5000 (though I’ve heard $9000 once) and can take up to a year to design, construct and bead. When I moved here in 2009, the tribes were still fighting  for their right to a permitted parade. This year, I spotted Mayor Mitch Landrieu shaking hands with police parade escorts before things got rolling.