00:00I ride the white buffaloes through these city streets.
00:04I'm the one that come from miles and miles around to me.
00:09And oh, when I dance.
00:11Golden diamonds fall underneath my feet.
00:15I'm that queen.
00:17Pretty, pretty queen.
00:19Creole Wild West.
00:22Creole Wild West.
00:24My name is Eleonora Brown.
00:28But I go by Rukia.
00:32I am a Mardi Gras Indian.
00:35My tribe is Creole Wild West.
00:38My big chief is Chief Howard Miller.
00:42I'm Howard Miller.
00:44And I'm chief of the Creole Wild West, Mardi Gras Indian.
00:47First tribe.
00:48The oldest tribe.
00:49Granddad of them all.
00:52Tyrone Casby.
00:55Big Chief Mohawk Hunters in Algiers.
01:05We are celebrating a culture where, from the beginning, the people that created this subculture was about the enslaved Africans or enslaved people.
01:22I am a ruler.
01:25I am a cockle.
01:26My tribe dates back to the late 1700s or early 1800s.
01:30In fact, we have a charter that says we were first chartered in 1835.
01:35And at that time, slavery was still existing here.
01:38Being a seaport town of Louisiana is one of the major slave ports here in the country.
01:42So, from that, you had a gumbo here.
01:45You had Africans from all over the world here enslaved.
01:48New Orleans was different with slavery.
01:51They had, like, Sundays off.
01:53And the enslaved people, they would go into Congo Square.
01:59And they just gathered there because that's where they intermingled.
02:04Their dancing and their trading went on there.
02:08And it was on Sundays that they were free to do this.
02:12So, the Indians would come into Congo Square.
02:17And they would socialize.
02:19And upon leaving, they would take some of the enslaved people with them.
02:25They would take them to their villages, which was, like, in the swamps areas.
02:31And they would put, say, a feather on them, put a bunch of feathers on them, drape them with a wrap.
02:44And they would take them out.
02:46And they would live amongst the Indians.
02:49And what the slave traders, they couldn't really tell them apart because they looked the same.
02:58They were melanated.
03:00They were copper-toned.
03:01So, they would blend in.
03:03And what we were trying to do is, here in America, to hold on to our African culture.
03:08So, this is where the practices that we found safe haven with the Native American allowed us to practice our culture.
03:16And we were seen out there as Indian because we couldn't be ourselves.
03:22So, we went up under the disguise as Indian to practice our African culture.
03:26Because here, in New Orleans, everywhere in the South, anything about Africa was forbidden.
03:31So, behind the mass, the suit is the mass.
03:35And behind that is the African culture being practiced.
03:38And it's one of the greatest kept secret in the world.
03:41It's about what we do and why we do it.
03:43And spiritual expression is what it really is.
03:47We have our own language and our own songs.
04:01And you'll never hear it sung the same way by any one person.
04:08Everybody got their twist, even on Indian Red.
04:11We are the Indians.
04:28Indians of a nation.
04:30Indians of a nation.
04:31Indians of a nation.
04:32Indians of a nation.
04:33Oh, I.
04:35Oh, I.
04:36Oh, I.
04:38If we won't bow down.
04:40If we won't bow down.
04:42Not on that ground.
04:44We're dirty ground.
04:46Because we love to hear you call my Indian Red.
04:55A lot of music is tied to us.
05:00But we're not tied to this.
05:02It came from us.
05:04Yeah.
05:05Some people think that this may have been the first form of music here in this city.
05:12It was the rhythm and the vibration of the chants.
05:18The chants that we were doing.
05:21Some people think it was here first.
05:26Then it got into the fields and slavery and singing and calling and responding.
05:34The men are chatting and it's coming from their spirit.
05:44And I don't know how they do it where every time everything rhymes.
05:49Everything goes together with what they're saying.
05:53And then you get the drums, the tamarins, if you ever heard it.
05:58They are just saying stories.
06:03They talking about their lives.
06:07They talking about this culture and what's going on.
06:12And it's just a joyful thing.
06:16It just feeds your soul.
06:18It just takes you somewhere else.
06:31From the beginning was the fish scales.
06:35Fish scales and turkey feathers.
06:39Africans use feathers.
06:41We use feathers.
06:42We use plumes.
06:44Africans use plumes.
06:47Also the Native Americans.
06:50So it's a mixture that you put all that together.
06:54And then we put that twist on it.
06:58You know that New Orleans twist.
07:00You know, and make it ours.
07:02And make it ours.
07:03So we really don't look like the Africans.
07:08We really don't look like the Indians.
07:12We look like Mardi Gras Indians or Black Mask Indians.
07:19We do everything big.
07:21We do like masterpieces.
07:24It's like crazy.
07:25But we also tell a story of what's going on with our suit.
07:33So it's a story within itself.
07:35It's a message.
07:38And it's also a visual art.
07:42I've been mastering since 1969.
07:45And with me it's been the same thing every year.
07:48Nine months for a year to complete that suit.
07:51I'm truly spiritual connection with this here.
07:55And I think that I'm being led by the magical, mystical power of the needle and tread when I'm sewing.
08:03It's come to me as I lay it down.
08:08As I lay my beads down on my stone.
08:10I may have an idea of what I want to do.
08:13And when I started doing it, it seemed like stuff started coming to me which way and how I should do it.
08:19At the end of the day, what you make is you.
08:22And what you put on is you.
08:24I can reflect back on a 2008 suit, which I made.
08:28I call it my Barack Obama suit.
08:30So on my suit I have a head of a black man coming out of a dragon, which symbolized he came out the belly of the beast.
08:40And as he did that, he won the election and he was standing on top of the world.
08:45And then at the top I had two dragons and the figurehead of a black chief.
08:50Even though he was on top of the world, you actually were still being attacked by those dragons.
08:55You still, even though you came out that beast, you still was being attacked.
08:59Simply indicating that even though Barack was on top of the world or the black man was on top of the world at that time.
09:06Even though he was there, he was still being attacked.
09:08This is a woman and she's carrying a peacock.
09:12And I did the story about when a peacock strut.
09:18So my suit had peacock feathers.
09:22And I'm talking about how we in New Orleans survive after all the tragedies, Hurricane Katrina, Ida, COVID.
09:36And when a peacock opened up his wings, how he spreads them out and he shakes.
09:43And then he walks around prancing.
09:46And I'm like, yeah, that's New Orleans.
09:49It's like, no matter what, we strut.
09:52When the engine comes out, people get happy and excited, you know.
10:05Everybody gets jolly.
10:06But this is what it was about.
10:08When we was coming out there in the beginning, to bring spiritual joy.
10:12To uplift your people, saying to them, to let them know that better days are coming.
10:17They got a light at the tunnel.
10:21And we can see that and just hold fast.
10:24That's what it was about.
10:26We do transform.
10:29So whoever I was, when you saw me yesterday, Mardi Gras Day, you're going to see somebody else.
10:37And that somebody else is a big queen.
10:40And that somebody else is going to love her people.
10:45She's going to dance for her people.
10:47And she's going to show them that they can be anybody that they want to be.
10:56We're not just chiefs on Mardi Gras.
10:58Yeah, there you go.
10:59We chief every day.
11:01Every day, you know, that's who we are in our neighborhood and our community.
11:06It's a Phillip community.
11:08It's like a griot.
11:09You know, a griot in the villages of Africa.
11:11That's the person everybody went to.
11:13And in your community, the big chief is the one you go to.
11:16I mean, even to this day.
11:17You know, folks that come to Mr. Cavs are like, chief, chief, chief, you know, yay.
11:21If I can, I will.
11:22It's not about the suit.
11:23The suit is on the mask.
11:25And what's behind that suit, that's what makes a difference with count.
11:30You think about it, the spirituality of what you do.
11:33You know, when you put that suit on, it's a spirituality thing.
11:36Because anyone could make and mask an Indian suit, but they don't have it from the heart.
11:40They can't do it.
11:41You know, you have folks that ask you, hey, man, I want to be an Indian.
11:44You're a Mardi Gras and you're black.
11:46You know, it's in your spirit.
11:47When you hear them drum beats, you got to be ready to roll with it.
11:50To me, it's a symbol of being still resilient.
12:01And it's a way to still fight back.
12:05And resilience is what we're all about.
12:09It's like we're never going to stop.
12:12We're going to keep doing what we do, no matter what you take from us.
12:18No matter what you do to us, we're going to continue.
12:23And the word that we say is no whom bow.
12:27We will not bow down.
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