Catholicism

Mystery in Motion: African American Spirituality in Mardi Gras

New Orleans has been a cradle of Black Catholicism since shortly after the city’s founding. French authorities regulated the enslaved population and free people of color in Louisiana and its other colonies with the 1724 Code Noir. Among other pronouncements, the code mandated Catholicism as the only legal religion for all residents, a requirement that continued under Spanish rule. Another of the code’s fifty-five articles established the use of the fleur-de-lis, a symbol of both the Catholic trinity and French royalty, to brand enslaved Africans who resisted authority.

In an environment of enforced Catholicism and racial stratification rose St. Augustine Catholic Church, founded in 1841. Free people of color purchased pews there, and the year after the parish was established, parishioner Henriette Díaz Delille, a free woman of color, began the Sisters of the Holy Family, one of only three Black orders of nuns in the United States. Just as noteworthy was the 1925 establishment of Xavier University of Louisiana, the only historically Black Catholic university in the nation. With such a strong Black Catholic community, it should come as no surprise that Catholic holy days and rituals came to play an important role in African American life in New Orleans.

Black masking Indians co-opted two days on the Catholic calendar, Mardi Gras (the last day before Lent) and the March 19 feast of St. Joseph. They used both days to resist oppression through African-based ritual, including call and response, percussion-based rhythm, improvisation in dancing, and veneration of ancestors. On St. Joseph’s Day, Catholics could indulge in pleasures normally forbidden during Lent, such as attending balls and the theater. They could also break from fasting. It is not known exactly when the observance of this feast day began in New Orleans, though it was part of the festive calendar by the early nineteenth century. Black masking Indians embraced the day by at least the 1930s.

Catholic traditions, institutions, feast days, saints, and processions provided a framework for Black maskers to blend in other religious practices inherited from the Caribbean and Africa. Masking on Mardi Gras and St. Joseph’s Day have remained steadfast among African Americans in New Orleans despite the population becoming less Catholic over time. This merging of traditions produced a unique cultural response to oppression, one that is still evolving today.

Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Big Queen of the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society
St. Joseph’s Night
Photograph by Cheryl Gerber Photo, 2019

Cherice Harrison-Nelson is a practicing Catholic who embraces Voodoo orishas in her suits as part of her eclectic spirituality. The top of the stick features a wrought-iron cross accentuated with fleurs-de-lis on each of the four points. The cross also contains the Ghanaian Sankofa symbol, adopted by the Guardians of the Flame, which means “retrieve what was taken.” The cross is a nod to colonial New Orleans ironworkers of African descent who embedded sacred symbols in the wrought iron they produced.

Dance
Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Kim Vaz-Deville, 2018

Ronald Dumas, a Wild Man with the Spirit of Fi Yi Yi and the Mandingo Warriors, second lines to the Treme Brass Band’s music. Second-line dance steps are called “footwork.” This dance style is often compared to the holy dances performed in Black churches when parishioners are moved by the spirit. This embodied devotion was African-inspired religious worship that moved into the streets when brass bands accompanied mourners and caskets to the cemetery. On the way to the gravesite, the band plays dirges and the steps are slow and purposeful, but upon leaving the cemetery, the music becomes upbeat and joyful, and the mourners’ footwork matches that transformation.

The Treme Brass Band members shown here are leader Benny Jones (bass drum), Vernon Severin (snare drum), John “Prince” Gilbert (tenor saxophone), and Raymond "Dr. Wrackle" Williams (trumpet).

Smoke
Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Kim Vaz-Deville, 2018

Adrianne Jackson, dressed in white, a ritual color associated with ancestors in Afro-diasporic communities, smokes a cigar as she participates in the parade. Cigars are central devotional objects in Yoruba and Afro-diasporic religions and are placed on altars and used for ritual cleansing. They also serve as a means of communication between devotees and their deity. The founder of Magnolia Yoga Studio, Jackson feels an ancestral connection to New Orleans, although she was not born here.

Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Eric Waters, 2018

The horse-drawn hearse in the museum’s annual parade always displays photographs and memorabilia to pay homage to deceased cultural leaders. The 2018 parade honored Thomas Sparks, Big Chief of the Yellow Jacket tribe, and Reverend Goat Carson, a Cherokee Indian who brought together Native Americans and Black masking Indians for an annual sacred event called White Buffalo Day.

Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Eric Waters, 2018

Supporters of Sylvester Francis’s vision of cultural preservation
Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Kim Vaz-Deville, 2018

Oswald “Bo Monkey” Jones (left of center, with hat and umbrella) is the grand marshal. Other participants are Merline Kimble (foreground, center) and Duplynn Joan Rhodes (right of center, in black suit). James Andrews and the Treme Brass Band follow. These supporters of Sylvester Francis’s vision for the community curation of Black masking and second line history and culture had been with him since the opening of the museum in 1999. Rhodes, who was then president of Rhodes Life Insurance Company, suggested that Francis take over the defunct Blandin Undertaking Company’s building, which the Rhodes family owned. Francis moved his collection from his garage to this new exhibition space. When Francis began organizing the annual All Saints’ Day parade, Oswald served as the first grand marshal, and his brother Benny, drummer and leader of the Treme Brass Band, provided the music. The benefactors’ commitment to the parade would endure for two decades.

Dr. Ansel Augustine, director of the Office of Black Catholic Ministries, (front) send-off, with Roderick Sylvas, Big Chief of the Wild Tchoupitoulas, and Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Big Queen of the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society
Photograph by Peter Finney Jr., 2017
Courtesy of the Clarion Herald

Shaka Zulu (left) and Darryl Montana (right) at their final Yellow Pocahontas practice before Mardi Gras, Basin Street Lounge
Photograph ©Ben Arnon, 2017

Big Chief Charles Taylor leads crowd in singing of “Indian Red" Photograph by Kim Vaz-Deville

Darryl Montana, Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas, St. Joseph’s Night
Photograph ©Ben Arnon, 2017

Left to right: Corey Henry, Sylvester Francis, Oswald “Bo Monkey” Jones, Backstreet Cultural Museum’s All Saints’ Day parade
Photograph by Eric Waters, 2018

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Mystery in Motion: African American Spirituality in Mardi Gras
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