Marching with New Orlean's Indians

Take a walk on the wild side with the Uptown and Downtown Indian Gangs. These guys are like individual Rose Bowl floats decked out in outfits that cost thousands of dollars and that hundreds of hours to make.

The costumes are lager than life and have a totally surreal quality to them as do the parades in which they are worn. There are a number of Indian gangs and each gang has it's own chants, dances and routes. When the routes cross the Indians do battle.

Each gang has a number of specific roles that must be filled. There are the spy boys who move through the crowd looking for other gangs. There is the wild man who opens the crowd for the gang's parade, often by swinging his ceremonial staff. There is the big chief who with massive head dress who directs the gang's parade.