MARDI GRAS INDIANS, a fascinating introduction to a culture too few know about

MARDI GRAS INDIANS
NIKESHA ELISE WILLIAMS
LSU Press/Louisiana True series
$21.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: Mardi Gras Indians explores how sacred and secular expressions of Carnival throughout the African diaspora came together in a gumbo-sized melting pot to birth one of the most unique traditions celebrating African culture, Indigenous peoples, and Black Americans. Williams ties together the fragments of the ancient traditions with the expressed experiences of the contemporary. From the sangamentos of the Kongolese and the calumets of the various tribes of the lower Mississippi River valley to one-on-one interviews with today’s Black masking tribe members, this book highlights the spirit of resistance and rebellion upon which this culture was built.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: Mardi Gras, on the American continent, started in Mobile, Alabama, before it was celebrated in New Orleans. That being said, New Orleans marketed it more tenaciously and is now the continent's premier destination for those seeking a more vivid, intense party experience than the Yuletide fun we're having now. I don't image too many who haven't been to, or been around, the Krewes that make the parades up know much about the venerable institution of the Mardi Gras Indians.

This book's métier is to explain the what and the why of this tradition, to bring you into the whens and the hows of the tradition's celebrants making this part of their lives:

Many, many generations of Bulbacha (New Orleans to us white people)'s inhabitants have been of mixed heritage, now an entire heritage group of its own: Afro-Indigenous people have been part of the Louisiana landscape sic slaver traders brought the African peoples to these shores in bondage. The author is our cicerone as this culture most white people, and lots of mixed heritage people (my own dear Young Gentleman Caller) had no idea they had no idea existed.

Her prose is illustrative and elucidative. It is not extensively footnoted, as I would've hoped. It reads well; it is, after all, the story of a people whose cultural identity was born of rebellion against the strictures, the customs, and the laws of their enslavers.

While the history of these good folk is deeply involving, it is not just a sweet celebration of all things Afro-Indigenous:

A careful look at this photo of Cherice Harrison Nelson by Arthur Severi will show you the "MeToo" painted onto her left shoulder facing us. Women in this cultural sphere, while leaders and maintainers of history, are also heirs to the ills of our patriarchal society.

The author has given you an entrée into the society of colorful, passionate, playful costume-wearing rebels against the status quo. She has done so with admirable clarity, with great aplomb, without making grandiose claims for the completeness and inerrancy of her work. Any of your Mardi-Gras loving lefty friends will appreciate both the subject and the execution of this book.