Mardi Gras Indians spend months preparing hand-sewn suits

This is an updated version of a story first published on April 5, 2026. The original video can be viewed here .

Every year, on Mardi Gras morning, something extraordinary emerges from the backstreets of New Orleans – groups of Black revelers most tourists will never see. They call themselves Mardi Gras Indians, or Black Masking Indians, and they roam the city's neighborhoods in dazzling, hand-sewn suits. As we first told you in April, the tradition dates to the 1800s as a way to honor their ancestors and, according to Mardi Gras Indian lore, is rooted in profound respect for Native Americans, said to have sheltered enslaved Africans who had escaped. It's an expression of joy, protest and pride, passed from generation to generation. Tonight, you'll meet the artists and musicians preserving the culture and take in the sights and sounds of one of America's last true secret societies.

If you're lucky enough to find them, you'll discover a vibrant tapestry of African, Caribbean and Native American threads, part of the cultural gumbo that is New Orleans.

These extravagant suits — plumed, bejeweled, beaded and sequined — are handcrafted in secret for an entire year, to be unveiled on Mardi Gras day.

Chawaa - that's Big Chief Demond Melancon of the Young Seminole Hunters announcing his arrival.

Big Chief Demond Melancon: Chawaa. Who the best? Who got the best beadwork? Who got the best rhinestones? Who can sing the best? Who got the biggest tribe? Who don't. That's what it is.

There are dozens of groups, calling themselves tribes. The leader is known as the big chief, who, along with his big queen and their crew, strut through historically Black neighborhoods searching for other tribes.

When Big Chief Demond meets another big chief, they square off in a mock battle, competing to show whose suit is, in their words, "the prettiest."

Bill Whitaker: What just happened back there? It looked like he just bowed out.

Big Chief Demond Melancon: Yeah, yeah. We on fire. We on fire. We on fire.

Big Chief Demond: When I put that suit on I'm Big Chief Demond Melancon.

Big Chief Demond: Somebody that's ready to honor everything that I was taught by my elders. And I'm ready to kill you dead with a needle and thread.

Needle and thread to do the work of his heart and hands. Big Chief Demond and his wife Alicia, meticulous as surgeons, sew beads the size of chia seeds on a canvas and stitch rhinestones in place with dental floss — painting with beads — making artwork for his suit.

Big Chief Demond: How it's laid out. How the velvet gets around it. How you break the feathers. How you manipulate the feathers. How many rows of rhinestones you have around the beadwork. That's the perfection of knowing your hook up – if you that good.