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Mardi Gras Indians
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15628 |
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CULTURE
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| Issue
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2 / 1989 |
4,810 Words |
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Maurice M. Martinez
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To be born in New Orleans is to be reincarnated: The past is always present; an enduring sense of self-identity interconnects and sorts out individuals. The mere mention of a nickname or family surname can ignite detailed descriptions of times past. New Orleans is a paradise of oral history. The spoken word contains implicit meanings nurtured by centuries of a cross-fertilization of cultures.
Profound philosophical messages lie hidden in the colloquial pronouncements of ordinary folk who may, for example, summarize a vivid experience with such delightful expressions as: "Did you heard what I say?" "Yeaaaaaah, you right!" "I'm talkin' a lil' pass what I'm thinkin'"; "For true?" "I mean what I say, yeah"; "Chere tee bey-bey!"
A melting-pot unmelting--New Orleans--the Big Easy, the Birthplace of Jazz, the Crescent City, is a citadel of cultural expressions. To drink from its many watering holes is to depart from the Sahara of mainstream-USA media-borne detritus. In this ancient American city one can experience a potpourri of artistic pleasures--a kind of quenching of the inner stressful burnout with the cooling energies of a good belly laugh.
If fun is the sad-glad father of New Orleans culture, spontaneity is its mother. Celebrations of every kind take place in homes, backyards, corner bars, and, more often, the streets. A street parade is an institution. It is in the unpaved dirt streets or New Orleans that one finds the most original expressions of elan vital (the creative force). Across town, the paved, narrow streets of the Vieux Carre and other older sections of the city are walled in by Paris-like buildings that can "carry a tune" better than anything contrived. To hear the parade sound of a trumpet echoing through the streets as the prancing rhythm of the bass drum bounces hefty backbeats between iron-laced balconies is to hear pure freshness of music in its most natural state. The parade becomes a vehicle for the sharing of exuberance as well as sorrow. And a change in the weather may be the raison d'etre for a parade.
The death of a musician almost always results in a large funeral parade with marching bands and hundreds of people on foot known as the Second Line. The early morning march from the church to the graveyard behind the hearse is slow, as the brass band plays a dirge of grief. Once the body has been "cut loose" (driven to the tomb), the band strikes up sounds of happy jazz--"When the Saints Go Marchin' In"--as the Second Line crowd dances with spirited joy to give the deceased a righteous "send-off." Smiles burst forth from tear-stained faces. Suddenly, like wildflowers, black umbrellas open everywhere! Young men, their heads encircled with halos of cloth sweatbands, allow their ancestral African spirits to transform their bodies into intense dancers. White handkerchiefs sprout from their fingertips, waved into the open air in rhythmic patterns of unpredictable release. The brass band slides into another song: "Didn't He Ramble. . . .till the butcher cut him down. . . ." "That ol' butcher's gonna cut us all down one day," reflects an onlooker. A dancer pauses to exclaim: "All I want to do now is to percolate down the avenue and look back at my residue."
The past and the present parade together through tolerant New Orleans streets to provide both the womb and sustenance for future moments of self-efficacy. It is this tolerance of such spontaneous--often
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