Event
Culture Bearer Program - Northside Skull & Bone Gang with Big Chief Sunpie Barnes
Fee:
Free. Free and open to the publicLocation: LAT/LONG: 29.954800, -90.064738
At the National Park Service French Quarter visitor center - 419 Decatur St, New Orleans, LA 70130
Dates & Times
Date:
Time:
Duration:
Type of Event
12:00 noon to 1:30 pm Central Time
Description
New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park
and
Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve
present a
Special Program
about African American Mardi Gras Traditions
featuring the
Northside Skull & Bone Gang with Big Chief Sunpie Barnes
Saturday at 12:00 noon
At the National Park Service French Quarter visitor center
419 Decatur Street, New Orleans, LA
The North Side Skull & Bones Gang rises before dawn, to wake people up on Mardi Gras Day with song, dance and a message to love each other and be thankful for another day of life. It's origins date back to 1819.
Black masking traditions are often about honoring ancestors, reclaiming power in a world of oppression, and creating beautiful expressions of joy, grief, and strength. In addition to Mardi Gras Indians, Baby Dolls and the North Side Skull and Bone Gang carry on the traditions of Black masking in the neighborhoods of New Orleans.
Skeletons are part of the transatlantic culture of the African diaspora, with representations in West African rituals, Caribbean Vodou practices, and Latin American Day of the Dead celebrations. For two centuries, the North Side Skull and Bone Gang has signaled the start of Mardi Gras Day, waking the spirits and serving as a reminder to live well before death.
Starting before dawn, they don skeleton suits, butcher aprons, and papier-mâché skulls to walk the streets of Tremé (a local neighborhood adjacent to the French Quarter), wielding bloody bones and rousing their neighbors with calls of “You next!”
Bruce Sunpie Barnes, Big Chief of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang, will discuss this ancient, living tradition.