New Orleans Black Mardi Gras
Indian Chief Costumes: Trans-cultural Communal Icons
by Daryl Harris
The following is excerpted from Chapter 2 of
my in-progress dissertation, “New Orleans Black Mardi Gras Indian
Chief Costumes: Trans-cultural Communal Icons.” The origins of the
tradition of Mardi Gras Indian suiting, of predominantly inner-city
New Orleans African Americans dressing in elaborate Native
American-inspired costumes to celebrate a European American holiday,
seem to be as mysterious as the societies themselves. The three most
commonly heard accounts form the cornerstone of Chapter 2.
One account holds that Black Mardi Gras
Indians named and dressed themselves as Indigenous Peoples as homage
to these Native Americans for their assistance in escaping the
perils of enslavement. A less popular, but equally plausible, theory
suggests that New Orleans Black Mardi Gras Indians were inspired by
contact with Plains Indians during the nineteenth century.
Proponents of this theory hold that hundreds of African Americans in
New Orleans enlisted in the U.S. Ninth Calvary. These “Buffalo
Soldiers,” as they were called, fought Native Americans in the West,
the Plains. A final account suggests that the costumes were inspired
by “show Indians” in “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.”
This chapter investigates each of these
narratives as well as the histories and conditions surrounding them,
in order to establish why Mardi Gras Indian suiting in America is
peculiar to New Orleans. Further, by tracing the outgrowth of the
tradition from these various histories, this chapter establishes the
costumes as symbols of the seamless blending together of horror and
honor, order and disorder, rights and rites, costumes and customs—as
trans-cultural communal icons.
Big Chief Alfred Ducette, of
the Flaming Arrows, costumes at Mardi Gras 2004.
“AUGUST ‘TWAS, THE TWENTY-FIFTH /
SEVENTEEN HUNDRED FORTY-SIX, /
THE INDIANS DID IN AMBUSH LAY”
—Lucy Terry, “Bars Fight”
Many Africans encountered Europeans, persons with “white” skin, for the first time when such men captured them and shipped them to America. After their voyages, “Black” men and women encountered another group of people: “Red”-skinned people, Indigenous Peoples, “Indians.” Blacks1 and Native Peoples learned to communicate and subsequently cooperate with each other. The first known escape from a plantation in the Louisiana area took place in 1722. The first documented successful cases of Blacks escaping into the bayou, aided by the Native Peoples of the area—such as the Choctaw, the Seminoles, and the Chickasaws—were recorded in 1725. Aided by Indigenous Peoples, enslaved men and women formed forest camps just outside the city, which were known as Maroon Camps, and learned to live off the land. In 1729 hundreds of enslaved people joined with the Natchez People in the bloodily unsuccessful Natchez Revolt, “an attempt by the Indians to prevent their sacred lands from being seized, as the French tried to develop their fledgling tobacco industry.”2
Both the show of force against the Natchez Revolt and the subsequent display of Africans’ heads mounted on pikes were so successful that no other such attempts were recorded for two years. Through the fear that this horrific display of violence instilled, the French established a sense of calm and security for themselves. Nevertheless, the French seem to have had a more liberal approach to slavery than the approach we typically envision today; i.e., the acres of cotton fields overseen by the sadistic, whip-bearing, white-linen-clad “Massah.” Because of their trade skills, enslaved Africans as well as free men of color were highly valued in New Orleans and enslaved people were commonly given weekends off to earn money with which to go into town. This state of trust led to the establishment of Negroes and mulattos fighting for the French troops. In 1736, for example, Simon, a free Negro operating under Governor Bienville, led a company of 45-50 free Negroes in an attack against the English and their Native American allies in the Chickasaw War.3
Weekends off, and bonds of trust did not, however, quench the enslaved Africans’ thirst for real freedom, though these advantages did facilitate that pursuit to some degree. Enslaved men and women began to produce and sell goods in order to accumulate money with which to buy their freedom. By 1744, the “Place de Negroes” (later known as Congo Square) became the established meeting place for free men of color and the enslaved to openly transact business, get news, and otherwise socialize. While hundreds gathered on Sunday afternoons to sing and dance in traditional styles, others gathered to perfect plans for freedom. The fulfillment of these plans often hinged upon the aid of local Indigenous Peoples, who helped fugitives to survive the swamps. Obviously, Blacks were grateful for the help. Thus, archival records indicate that, by 1746, enslaved men and women began to celebrate Mardi Gras in their own fashion, including dressing as “Indians.” “These were, in all likelihood, the first known Mardi Gras
Indians.”4
This appearance of Mardi Gras Indians predates Buffalo Bill-inspired, or even Buffalo Soldier-inspired Mardi Gras Indians, by about one hundred years. Still, this early manifestation does not necessarily negate the strong influence that the “Buffaloes” may have had on the Mardi Gras Indians we see today. By 1756, as Clark notes, what was once a trickle of fugitives who escaped into the bayous and swamps had become a flood. It seems highly probable that many of those escapees were persons of color who simply walked away dressed like “Indians.” In any case, this “flood” continued for about twenty years, at one point prompting the governor to throw up his hands and declare: “Where are those niggers running too? There’s nothing out there but
swamp!”5
Over time, and aided by the Maroon Camps, enslaved escapees became acknowledged as ‘Free Men of Color.’ They frequently intermarried with Native Peoples and produced children who were labeled as Mulattos and Creoles. In 1771, such ‘Free Men of Color’ were still dressing as, and with, “Indians” and were adopting more and more of their ways. During Mardi Gras celebrations, they held parties both in the Maroon Camps and in the back parts of the cities. To the embarrassment of the members of high society, Creoles were also sneaking into the mainstream Mardi Gras balls. In 1781, this intolerable affront prompted the Spanish administration of the city at the Cabildo to grant “a prohibition of black persons from being masked, wearing feathers, and attending night balls,” forcing them “to … dress and roam only in the black neighborhoods and Congo Square.”6 Two years later ‘Free Men of Color’ formed the Perseverance Benevolent & Mutual Aid Association to serve as a form of insurance and social aid to Blacks. This was the first of many such organizations that would become the cornerstone of most of today’s African American walking clubs and carnival organizations, including the Mardi Gras Indian gangs.7
“BRING ME MY BUFFALO HORN OF BLACK POWDER
BRING ME MY HEADDRESS OF BLACK FEATHERS”
—Ishmael Reed
8
By 1850, New Orleans had become the largest “slave”-trading center of the South.9 After Abraham Lincoln’s election, Louisiana became the sixth of the southern states to secede (though interestingly, New Orleans voted three to one to preserve the Union).10
Attacked by Admiral David G. Farragut’s squadron of seventeen vessels, New Orleans became the first Confederate city to be captured. This dramatic capture accomplished the Union’s goal to control the port of New Orleans and, thus, the lower Mississippi River. With New Orleans having fallen, about 24,000 Louisiana Blacks joined the Union forces.11Many of these joined General Benjamin F. Butler’s Native Guard units that occupied New Orleans. These units were responsible for initiating Reconstruction policies.
The Army Reorganization Act of 1866 allowed two of 10 cavalry regiments, and four of 45 infantry regiments, to consist of Black enlisted men. As a result of this Reorganization Act, in August of that year Gen. Phillip Sheridan, commander of the Military Division of the Gulf, received authorization to form one regiment of “colored” cavalry, to be designated the 9th Cavalry Regiment. The first recruiting office for this unit was established in New Orleans and, in fall 1866, a second was opened in Louisville, Kentucky. The majority of the original recruits came from Louisiana and Kentucky, and many were veterans of the Civil War. Recruiters concentrated their efforts in New Orleans and the nearby vicinity, where many young Black men were eager to enlist because the army provided opportunities for social and economic betterment that were otherwise closed to them.12 New recruits received $13 a month, plus room, board, and clothing for an enlistment period of five years.13
Between the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, approximately 10% of the 141,000 enlisted men serving in the U.S. Army were Black. During this so-called era of the Indian wars, the majority of these soldiers served in posts located in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states—the home of the “Plains Indians.”14
The Black troopers who served during this time became known as “Buffalo Soldiers.” Theories vary as to the origins of the appellation. Some suggest that the “Plains Indians” first used the term because of the similarities between the hair and the color of the buffalo and those of African Americans. Others suggest that the name came as a result of Black soldiers wrapping themselves in buffalo robes during the winter. Finally, some theorize that the “Plains Indians” originated the term because of their respect for both the buffalo and Black men, as both were considered worthy opponents in battle. In any case, the term was readily accepted and celebrated for both members of the cavalry and members of the infantry.15
Between 1866 and 1899, “Buffalo Soldiers” were stationed at a variety of forts or posts scattered throughout the American West. Almost every frontier post had working in tandem at least one company of infantrymen and one company of cavalrymen. Infantrymen were responsible mostly for the necessary, but mundane, tasks which were required to maintain their often-isolated posts. These skilled and un-skilled tasks included garrison duty, building roads, installing telegraph lines, erecting buildings, digging water wells and food storage cellars, and serving as carpenters, plasterers, painters, and bricklayers. For the most part, these Black infantrymen served all over the American West.
Black cavalrymen were primarily involved with subduing and fighting “Indians.” The 9th Cavalry served mostly in the states of Kansas and Texas as well as in the territories of Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico, with fewer numbers serving in the states and territories of Nebraska, the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. Many of their White counterparts and superiors treated these soldiers with traditionally-racist disdain. George A. Custer, for example, refused a lieutenant colonelcy with the 9th Cavalry and then finagled the same rank with the all-White 7th—the one ultimately defeated at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.16 Far too many White commanders either created or allowed the very conditions that encouraged racism. Records reveal numerous charges by Black soldiers that officers directed abusive language toward them, language that often included racial epithets.17
Conversely, military records are also filled with statements of praise from numerous White officers who deemed “Buffalo Soldiers” “reliable,” “trustworthy,” “faithful,” “courageous,” and “devoted to duty.”18
After a tough battle with a group of Colorado “Indians,” a White commander bestowed upon Black soldiers what he considered to be the highest possible praise by dubbing them “the whitest men” he had ever seen.19
“Buffalo Soldiers” performed thirty years of continuous service on the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain West. According to Monroe Lee Billington’s “Buffalo Soldiers in the American West,” they aided in bringing a new civilization to the American frontier by participating in a temporary military society that interacted with a White civilian population, which resulted in a cultural exchange between the two races.20 He further acknowledges that these soldiers helped to control resisting “Indians,” intervened in civil disturbances, and contributed positively to the economy of the West.21
Beyond “subduing and fighting,” Billington does not discuss interactions between African American soldiers and Native Americans. On the other hand, the existence of people like Assiniboine playwright William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. and his semi-autobiographical play
Grandchildren of the Buffalo Soldiers indicate that there were certain forms of exchanges between the two groups. Research to date, however, does not support suppositions that Buffalo Soldiers may have spent leisure time with various tribes of “Plains Indians”—even during peacetime. When they were not on patrol, these soldiers were engaged in incessant inspections, drills, and parades. Additionally, many of the troopers took advantage of after-hours schools, which were established to address the prevailing enslavement-imposed illiteracy.22
Records indicate that the soldiers spent their remaining time and money pursuing “typical American” leisure activities—church, taverns, dances, and sports.
Why, then, would fighting and subduing lead to honoring and imitating? While Billington suggests that Native Americans used the term “Buffalo Soldier” out of respect for such worthy opponents as buffalo and Black men, it is also true that early African traditions may also have helped to lay the groundwork for a mutual respect and even admiration. Beyond honoring Native Peoples for their help during slavery, celebratory imitation might also have honored their bravery in battle. The chattel-based need for Europeans to establish “otherness” precluded such mutuality between Whites and persons of any other color. Generally, Blacks, Reds, Yellows, and Browns imitated Whites as an affirmation of assimilation, rather than as an expression of adoration.
The theory that the name “Buffalo Soldier” derived from the soldiers wrapping themselves in buffalo robes during the winter implies some type of commercial dealings between the Black Soldiers and the Native Americans. While it also seems probable that the robes—highly valued by most Native Nations—may have been war booty, records documenting the burnings of hundreds of robes and other treasures seem to indicate otherwise.23 In either case, Black soldiers interacted with “Plains Indians” for over thirty years. It is significant that soldiers typically encountered warriors—replete and resplendent in full war regalia. In one 1872 incident, for example, “the troopers [the 9th Cavalry] destroyed tipis and all their contents with the exception of one item for each man—Indian bonnets which they wore gaily as they trotted into Fort Stockton.”24
Incidents like this one suggest a less popular, less romantic possible reason that some African Americans may have begun masking as “Indians”: for the first time since arriving in America, they had defeated someone, they were on top, finally. Perhaps some of these veterans and their descendents masked as Mardi Gras Indians in celebration of their victories, just as their African ancestors—such as the hunters who often wore the skins of their defeated prey in ritual celebrations—had. Whatever the case, the images of “Indian” chiefs and warriors remained in the minds and imaginations of these soldiers, whether they remained in the West or returned to their various homes, including New Orleans.
“I AM A COWBOY IN THE BOAT OF RA
BONING-UP
IN THE OL WEST I BIDE MY TIME.”
—Ishmael Reed 25
The image of the traditional “Plains Indian” became the stereotypical “Indian” image in the minds of most Americans, due in large part to the showmanship of Buffalo Bill Cody.
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born in LeClaire, Iowa in 1846. His family later moved to Levenworth, Kansas. Cody left home at age 11 and crossed the Great Plains several times, whether herding cattle, working as a driver on a wagon train, fur trapping, gold mining or, in 1860, joining the Pony Express. After the Civil War, he scouted for the Army. He earned the nickname “Buffalo Bill” because of his prowess as a hunter. His legendary life was popularized in newspaper accounts and dime novels
.
Buffalo Bill’s show business career began in Chicago in 1872. He appeared along with another well-known scout, “Texas Jack” Omohundro, in a drama created by dime novelist Ned Buntline entitled “The Scouts of the Prairie.” Buntline, himself, also appeared in the drama and the show was a success. Buffalo Bill received mixed reviews as an actor, but there was no doubt that he was a showman. The following year, Cody organized his own troupe, the Buffalo Bill Combination. Initially the company included Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, and Cody’s old friend “Wild Bill” Hickok. The troupe performed its “Scouts of the Plains” and other plays until 1882, the year that his Wild West exhibition was conceived. With its cast of hundreds, as well as live buffalo, elk, cattle, and other animals, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” was an outdoor spectacle designed both to educate and to entertain.
Much of the emphasis of the troupe’s shows was on the Congress of Rough Riders. True to the implications of the term “congress” this multicultural grouping of “Rough Riders” represented some of the finest horsemen in the world: American military such as the Cavalry and Artillery, a contingent of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, English Lancers, German Cuirassiers, Mexicans, Cossacks, Arabs, Cubans, Hawaiians, Filipinos, “American Indians,” cowboys, and cowgirls.26 At this time, most people used the term “cow-boy” as an insult, regarding these people as coarse cattle drivers. By the end of the nineteenth century, thanks in large part to “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” shows, “cow-boy” became the much more popular “cowboy.”27
There was then, and still today there exists, controversy over the relationship between Buffalo Bill and the “show Indians,” as they were often called.28
Native American historian Vine Deloria, Jr. of the University of Arizona suggests that:
Instead of degrading the Indians and classifying them as primitive savages, Cody elevated them to a status of equality with contigents [sic] from other nations. In so doing, he recognized and emphasized their ability as horsemen and warriors and stressed their patriotism in defending their home lands. This type of recognition meant a great deal to the Indians who were keenly aware that American public opinion often refused to admit the justice of their claims and motivations. Inclusion of Indians in the Congress of Rough Riders provided a platform for displaying natural ability that transcended racial and political antagonisms and, when contrasted with other contemporary attitudes toward Indians, represented one that was amazingly sophisticated and liberal.29
Buffalo Bill’s motivations and the appropriateness of his shows are outside the scope of this writing. What is significant here is that he and his internationally famous Wild West exhibition were instrumental in establishing the highly-stylized representation of the feathered and beaded “Indian” upon which Black Mardi Gras Indian imagery is based. In chronological terms, it is unlikely that the Buffalo Bill’s “show Indians” inspired the tradition of Indian masking. In fact, most contemporary Mardi Gras Indian chiefs disdainfully dismiss the ‘Buffalo Bill theory.’ Still, it is highly probable that those “show Indians” played a significant role in inspiring the costumes and, to some degree, the customs that we see today.
In 1884, Cody did take his show to New Orleans, during the first season of what would become his life-long partnership with the more-experienced showman, Nate Salsbury. It was one of the troupe’s most challenging seasons, primarily because the company’s boat sank en route to New Orleans. No one was injured but stock and equipment were ruined, so Cody scrambled to salvage and replenish his equipment before the show’s scheduled opening.30 Concurrently with the world’s fair, the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, the show ran for four months.
Socially, New Orleans was still very much a southern American city. However, its unique history of French and Spanish influences provided a multi-ethnic climate in which minorities and working-class people were sprinkled regularly throughout the large crowds. In addition to mounting posters, the show’s participants publicized the performances by parading through the town in costume. According to
The Daily Picayune report of December 22, 1884, “The Indians wore their semi-civilized garb, were gorgeous in their native war paint and spoke their own guttural language . . . and they went through the weird dances of their race.”31 As Michael P. Smith suggests, “this magnificent street theater, including ‘costumed and armed Plains warriors, some of them perhaps recent victors over Custer, striding proudly through the streets of New Orleans,’” must have left deep impressions on Blacks and the city’s other ethnic minorities.32
New Orleans’ African American civilians were probably impressed and inspired by images that suggested Native Americans had fought valiantly against the two groups’ mutual oppressors. For example, Wild West exhibition posters often portrayed the “Indian” as “The American.”33 This was a rather bold conceptualization for the time. Frequently, these posters featured battle scenes highlighting the Native American’s bravery and readiness for adventure. These portrayals were consistent with the views that Buffalo Bill expressed during an 1885 tour of Canada:
In nine cases out ten [sic] when there is trouble between white men and Indians, it will be found that the white man is responsible. Indians expect a man to keep his word. They can’t understand how a man can lie. . . .
The defeat of Custer [the same Custer, incidentally, who refused to
command a troupe of Buffalo Soldiers] was not a massacre. The Indians were being pursued by skilled fighters with orders to kill. For centuries they had been hounded from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. They had their wives and little ones to protect and they were fighting for their existence.34
Although there is a remote possibility that former Buffalo Soldiers may have identified with the show’s dramatized victories over the “Indians,” Smith is emphatic that, “the great majority of common folk in New Orleans would have condemned the genocide portrayed and would have ridiculed the white supremacy notion carried by the show. Blacks who attended the Buffalo Bill Wild West exhibition would have sympathized with the Indians rather than with Buffalo Bill, and would have departed the show identifying strongly with the Indians’ struggle.”35 Those who did not relate directly to warfare were probably reminded of the assistance provided for some of them and their ancestors by the “Indians” of their locales.
When Sitting Bull joined the show, he was usually pictured equally in posters along with Buffalo Bill. Often, as a “star” of the show, his image dominated Cody’s. In performance, Sitting Bull countered popular perceptions that he was a blood-thirsty leader of the savages who killed Custer. Instead, he was featured and honored as the wise spiritual leader and advisor that he truly was. For photographs, posters, and performance, he chose to wear elaborate ceremonial dress. Like that of other “show Indians,” his everyday wear was a combination of traditional Native American and European-American wear. This practice was no different from Buffalo Bill’s and other showmen’s practical choice to wear more flamboyant gear for performance purposes. Moreover, whether they were seen in performance, in the grand parades, or on posters throughout the city, Buffalo Bill’s “show Indians” made a deep and lasting influence on Blacks in New Orleans.
During this time, there was at least one other significant opportunity for Blacks in New Orleans to encounter “Indians” in full regalia. Because the world’s fair generated additional interest, the 1885 Mardi Gras was even more spectacular than usual. Included among the large numbers of international visitors to the city were “a number of Central American Indian groups from Mexico, and some fifty to sixty Plains Indians from the Wild West Show [sic], including four chiefs, all of whom were likely on the streets of the city, at some point, in their native ceremonial dress.”36
Together, these events provided a veritable palette of “Indian” imagery. This rare opportunity for local Blacks to see diverse groups of Native Americans and their wide-ranging ceremonial costumes might have contributed to contemporary variations in both the uptown and the downtown Mardi Gras Indians motifs as well as to the uniqueness of individual costumes within each of these traditions.
While the World’s Fair Cotton Exposition and Buffalo Bill both arrived over a century too late to be the first to inspire Blacks to mask as “Indians,” they did seem to have had a direct influence on establishing the custom of Mardi Gras Indian gangs. Oral and written histories generally agree that the first official gang began around 1885 under the leadership of the “First Chief,” Becate Batiste, who, interestingly, was of African American, Native American (Choctaw) and French descent.37 He was the great uncle of Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana, a foremost masker for fifty years, who retired in 1997 and died in 2005. The name of Chief Becate’s first gang was Creole Wild West, presumably reflecting the influence that “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” and other such traveling shows may have had both the customs and the costumes of the Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans.
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there were numerous shows like Buffalo Bill’s traveling through the city. Many of them also had full companies of Black cowboys, and various combinations of Blacks, Whites, Seminoles and Cherokees.38
The “101 Wild West Show,” starring the 101 Wild West Mardi Gras Indian gang, was one such show. Very shortly after these public appearances, these public displays, and the birth of a tradition of Black Mardi Gras Indian suiting, “Jim Crow laws banned blacks from public parks, and enforced the strictest segregation in all public facilities. Vernacular black culture (especially the ‘savage’ and ‘dangerous’ sort most repugnant to radical whites such as that of the Mardi Gras Indians) retreated deep into the neighborhoods and back streets of the city.”39
—once again.
NOTES:
1 My capitalization of “Black,” “White,”
“Native Peoples,” “Indigenous Peoples,”
etc., while grammatically incorrect, is a personal, philosophical
choice.
2
Clark, Willie W., Jr. “A Short History of the Mardi Gras Indians
of New Orleans,” 16 November 1999. Accessed 6 December 2001;
available from http://www.mardigrascoconuts.com/MGInd/history.htm;
Internet, p. 2 of 5.
3 Ibid. 3.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Ishmael Reed, from “I am a cowboy in the boat
of Ra,” in The Norton Anthology of African American Literature,
ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay (New York: Norton,
1997), 2287.
9 “New Orleans: History,” in Lonely Planet
World Guide | Destination New Orleans | History, Lonely Planet Publications:2002,
accessed 26 April 2002; available from _http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/north_america/new_orleans/history.htm.
Internet, p.2 of 3.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 William H. Leckie, The Buffalo Soldiers: a Narrative
of the Negro Cavalry in the West (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 1967) 9.
13 "The 9th Cavalry," in The Buffalo
Soldiers on the Western Frontier [home page] (Kentucky Horse
Park, Kentucky: International Museum of the Horse, 1996, accessed
18 July 2002); available from http://www.imh.org/imh/buf/buf2.html;
Internet, 1.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., 57.
16 Ibid., 69.
17 Ibid.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 Ibid., 70.
21 Ibid.
22 “Daily Life on the Western Frontier,”
in The Buffalo Soldiers on the Western Frontier [home page]
(Kentucky Horse Park, Kentucky: International Museum of the Horse,
1996, accessed 18 July 2002); available from http://www.imh.org/imh/buf/buf4.html;
Internet, 1.
23 Leckie, 90-91.
24 Ibid., 103.
25 Reed, 2287.
26 David Katzive ed., Buffalo
Bill and the Wild West (Brooklyn: Brooklyn Museum, 1981), 53.
27 "Buffalo Bill’s Life” in Buffalo
Bill History [home page] (Professionalimages.com.Inc.,
April 2001, accessed 30 October 2001); available from http://www.buffalobill.org/history.htm:
Internet, p. 1 of 4.
28 The term “show Indians” does not negate
the authenticity or traditional nature of the costumes. Aware of
their status as performers, “Indians” often chose to
dress in the most elaborate of their own clothing. Details of “traditional,”
and Plains Indian clothing are discussed in a later chapter of my
dissertation.
29 Katzive, 54.
30 Joy S. Kasson, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
(New York: Hill & Wang, 2000), 52-53.
31 Michael P. Smith, “Buffalo Bill and the Mardi
Gras Indians,” in Cultural Vistas (Louisiana Endowment
for the Humanities, Fall 1992), 13.
32 Ibid.
33 "Buffalo Bill’s Life,” 2.
34 Katzive, 51.
35 Smith, 14.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid., 35.
38 Ibid., 37.
39 Ibid.
Daryl Harris is a faculty member of the Theater Department
and
a faculty associate of the Institute for Freedom Studies at Northern Kentucky
University.
