Mardi Gras Indians at Jazz Fest

Mardi Gras Indians at Jazz Fest

As recently as the early 1980s, only a handful of tribes appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. In 2022, more than 40 performed on stage and paraded through the Fair Grounds, giving attendees from around the world a taste of one of the city’s most enduring and enigmatic cultural traditions.

Baby Dolls

Baby Dolls

The Baby Dolls of New Orleans are renowned not only for their dancing and attire but their commitment to preserving an iconic tradition that has been uplifting and empowering women for more than a century.

North Side Skull and Bone Gang

North Side Skull and Bone Gang

These maskers, dressed as skeletons and wielding scary-looking spears and large bones, wake up the Tremé neighborhood on Mardi Gras morning with a warning: Get your act together before it’s “too late.” They evoke the literal meaning of Carnival — farewell to the flesh...

Black Masking Indians

Black Masking Indians

Once shrouded in secrecy, with little interest in sharing their traditions with the outside world, Black Masking Indians, also known as Mardi Gras Indians, have become celebrated icons whose music draws Grammy nominations and whose history and folkways command serious...

Andrew Justin

Andrew Justin

At age five, Chief Drew began second lining with The Square Deals Social and Pleasure Club. Maurice Justin’s brother Theodore “Teddy” Justin served as the original vice president of the club, under founder Dooky Chase. Chief Drew remembers watching the members...

All things Mardi Gras in New Orleans