BIG CHIEF HOWARD MILLER
Hello friends.  I hope this note finds you all happy and healthy.  As most of you know New Orleans holds a very special place in my heart.  There are so many unique traditions and people that I have come to understand and know during my 27 years of experiencing this city.  I am writing to all of you to help me help my friend Big Chief Howard Miller of the Creole Wild West Tribe.  Will you help me Mask A Mardi Gras Indian?

Mardi Gras Indian Masking means designing /creating a new costume each year.

Chief Howard wears a hand-beaded and feathered suit of original design that weighs between 100 and 150 pounds. He wears this suit as he marches throughout the city on Mardi Gras Day, meeting the other chiefs along the way.

Making a new suit is time-consuming and must be planned carefully.  An Indian's costume may take up to a year to complete . . . concepting,  ordering material, designing layout, sewing and beadwork to follow.  The beadwork is done entirely by hand. . .and he and many of his friends and family do all of the work themselves. This bead art and the plumage selected each year make a glorious combination of color and texture that render his costume an extraordinary work of art.

Chief Howard wants to be sure the tradition of Masking is carried on and has been teaching neighborhood children Mardi Gras Indian traditions and sewing techniques for more than 15 years.

“We want to teach them how to sew and to learn the history of the culture and the meaning of it, the signals and the spiritual dances and chants. The New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian council has been looking for ways to keep our culture intact, so that’s what we’re trying to do, preserve our culture. If we can get the young people involved, we’ve got the chance to see the Creole Wild West roll over for another 100 years.  We want to teach them to sew their own suits so that when they come out there they can feel the spirit that we feel, that moment when you put on your first suit and look in the mirror and know that we sewed that, it came from our time and our mind and our spirit. We want them to feel that. It’s a great thing.”

So to get to my point . . . .Masking is expensive and over the next month I would like to help my friend Chief Howard out. Take a minute to watch this video and if you can spare a few bucks it would be greatly appreciated . . . . oh and then get your butts down here for Mardi Gras 2017 (if you don’t live here already!)

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21302968