A Place for the Mardi Gras Indians

No one can say for sure how many Mardi Gras Indian tribes there are in New Orleans. That’s always been an open question. There might be two dozen tribes, 40 tribes, or more—some with dozens of members spanning generations, some of them upstart tribes of a single individual. Fewer tribes are donning full regalia now than they were before Hurricane Katrina, in all likelihood. But that’s changing.

“Post-Katrina, some guys didn’t come back, definitely,” says Big Chief Tyrone Casby, the head of the Mohawk Hunters, one of the city’s largest tribes. “Some guys lost a lot of stuff during the storm,” he says, referring to their distinctive costumes, part of the rich pageantry for which the Mardi Gras Indians are known. “In light of that, we still have other guys who are trying to form tribes.”