This article examines embodied double and triple consciousness expressed by African Americans who reflect Indigenous and transplanted African/Indian heritages while performing as Mardi Gras “Indians” in New Orleans. Moving beyond simplistic dichotomies of “Africanness” and “indigeneity,” Black Indians produce sustained historical and cultural identities which reinforce Afro-indigeneity to overcome oppressive conditions while creating a foundation for resilience. Mardi Gras Indians perform ritual parades and complex acts of resistance and joy—playfully appropriating and adapting African, Indian and American cultures to interrogate hybrid identities beyond Black/White paradigms. The playful ambiguities—and mocking stereotypical images of savage Indians and Africans—continue to be displayed through music, art and pop cultural expressions well into the post-Katrina era. An examination of Black Indians through a cultural-historical analysis sets the stage for a reassessment of popular culture and the HBO TV series Treme (Simon, 2010–2013)—specifically its use of fictive, triple-conscious imaginaries which give life to vibrant, joyful expressions of resistance.
BarakaA. (1999). Blues people: Negro music in White America.New York, NY: Harper Perennial. (Original work published 1963)
2.
BerryJ. (1984, February 17). Controversy swirls around Mardi Gras Indian origins.New Orleans Times-Picayune, sec. 1, p. 6.
3.
BlankL. (Director). (1978). Always for pleasure [Motion picture]. United States: Flower Films.
4.
BrooksJ. F. (2002). Confounding the color line: The Indian-Black experience in North America.Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
5.
DeloriaP. J. (1998). Playing Indian.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
6.
DlaminiS. S. (2009). The South African Blue Notes: Bebop, mbaqanga, apartheid and the exiling of a musical imagination (Doctoral thesis, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa). Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10413/480
7.
Du BoisW. E. B. (1997). The souls of Black folk (BlightD. W., & Gooding-WilliamsR., Eds.). Boston, MA: Bedford Books. (Original work published 1903)
8.
EllisonR. (1952). Invisible man.New York, NY: Random House.
9.
EllisonR. (1995). Change the joke and slip the yoke. In Shadow and act (pp. 45–59). New York, NY: Vintage International. (Original work published 1953)
10.
FanonF. (1967). Black skin, white masks (C. L. Markmann, Trans.). New York, NY: Grove Press.
11.
GainesK. (1996). Uplifting the race: Black leadership, politics, and culture in the twentieth century.Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. http://doi.org/c9xcnj
12.
GatesH. L.Jr. (1989). The signifying monkey: A theory of African-American literary criticism.New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
13.
GendrinD. M., DessingesC., & HajjarW. (2012). Historicizing the Mardi Gras Indians in HBO's Treme: An emancipatory narrative.Intercultural Communication Studies, 21(1), 290–305.
14.
GothamK. F. (2007). Authentic New Orleans: Tourism, culture, and race in the Big Easy.New York, NY: NYU Press.
15.
GrayH. (1995). Watching television, watching race: Television and the struggle for “Blackness.”Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
16.
GuthrieR. (2012). Minstrelsy and mythic appetites. In HigginsM. (Ed.), Hollywood's Africa after 1994 (pp. 110–124). Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.
17.
GuthrieR. (2013). Reading Radmilla: The semiotics of self (Black and Navajo). In HarrisM., NakataM., & CarlsonB. (Eds.), The politics of identity: Emerging indigeneity (pp. 169–184). Sydney, Australia: UTSe Press.
18.
GuthrieR. (2015). The real ghosts in the machine: Afrofuturism and the haunting of racial space in I, Robot and DETROPIA. In AndersonR., & JonesC. E. (Eds.), Afrofuturism 2.0: The rise of Astro-Blackness (pp. 45–60). Lanham, MD: Lexington.
19.
Harrison-NelsonC. (1996, September 8). Guardians of the Flame: Upholding community traditions and teaching with art in New Orleans.In Motion Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/
20.
Harrison NelsonC., & HarrisonD.Jr. (2006, February 27). Mardi Gras Indians trace roots to slaves (F. Chideya, Interviewer) [Radio broadcast episode]. In News & notes (N. Childers, Executive Producer). Culver City, CA: National Public Radio.
21.
HirschA. R. (2007). Fade to Black: Hurricane Katrina and the disappearance of Creole New Orleans.Journal of American History, 94(3), 752–761. http://doi.org/ch3qdk
22.
HuhndorfS. M. (2001). Going native: Indians in the American cultural imagination.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
23.
JohnsonJ. (1991). New Orleans's Congo Square: An urban setting for early African-American culture formation.Louisiana History, 32(2), 117–157.
LipsitzG. (1988). Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and counter-narrative in Black New Orleans.Cultural Critique, no. 10, 99–121. http://doi.org/ds37pj
26.
LogsdonD. (Director), & ElieL. E. (Writer). (2008). Faubourg Tremé: The untold story of Black New Orleans [Motion picture]. United States: Serendipity Films.
27.
MilesT., & HollandS. P. (Eds). (2006). Crossing waters, Crossing worlds: The African diaspora in Indian Country.Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
MuñozJ. E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of color and the performance of politics.Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
30.
OstendorfB. (2000). Celebration or pathology? Commodity or art? The dilemma of African-American expressive culture.Black Music Research Journal, 20(2), 217–236. http://doi.org/dqjtnp
31.
PattersonO. (1982). Slavery and social death: A comparative study.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
SextonJ. (2010). People-of-color-blindness: Notes on the afterlife of slavery.Social Text, 28(2), 31–56. http://doi.org/cgpcvk
39.
SimonD. (Producer). (2002-2008). The Wire [Television series]. United States: HBO.
40.
SimonD. (2010, April 1). HBO's “Treme” creator David Simon explains it all for you.Times Picayune. Retrieved from http://www.nola.com
41.
SimonD. (Producer). (2010-2013). Treme [Television series]. United States: HBO.
42.
SmithF. (1999). King Zulu's two bodies: Racial masquerade in a Black New Orleans carnival performance. In FietL., & BecerraJ. (Eds.), Caribe 2000/Caribbean 2000: A gathering of poets and players (pp. 127–152). San Juan, Puerto Rico: University of Puerto Rico.
43.
SmithM. P. (2003). Buffalo Bill and the Mardi Gras Indians. In GaudetM., & McDonaldJ. C. (Eds.), Mardi Gras, gumbo, and zydeco: Readings in Louisiana culture (pp. 16–25). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
44.
WalkerA. (Director). (2009). Bury the hatchet [Motion picture]. United States: Cine-Marais Altaire Productions.
45.
WashingtonS. (2012). Exiles/inxiles: Differing axes of South African jazz during late apartheid.South African Music Studies, 32, 91–111.
46.
WildersonF. (2010). Red, white, and black: Cinema and the structure of U.S. antagonisms.Durham, NC: Duke University Press. http://doi.org/bszp
47.
WoodsC. (1998). Development arrested: Race, power and the blues in the Mississippi Delta.London, England: Verso.
48.
WoodsC. (Ed.). (2010). In the wake of Katrina: New paradigms and social visions.Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins Press.
