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"The Big Chief and his Legacy"

Joyce Montana is used to being interviewed. She has been in the paper, television, magazines, and has even been questioned by Dan Rather. Everyone wants to know about the woman behind the man- a man known, at least once a year, as the late Big Chief Tootie Montana.

Joyce met Tootie over fifty years ago at a club in Treme where he was working. The neighborhood was better then, at least in the shockingly lucid memory of the 76 year old black woman. Joyce speaks in a mouse like whisper; immediately gives visitors warm bear hugs and homemade sugar cookies when they walk inside her house; and grows misty and deep-eyed when she speaks of him.

Right before he asked her out, half a century ago, Tootie asked her one question.

"Can you sew sugar-pie?"

She confesses now that even after fifty years of marriage, she was always his second love.

His first love is the reason we know the name: 'Montana'. It is this eccentric name which is now nearly synonymous with the tradition of Indian masquerading on Mardi Gras day.

One must see the suits in person to fully appreciate their sheer grandeur- and there is no shortage of breathtaking mannequins on display in the Montana household. They are simply massive, ornate, brilliant creations which were obviously born from the mind of an obsessively passionate individual, perhaps even a mad-man. Looking at them, one feels skeptical that the weight of such a garment could even be supported by a man, much less flaunted in countless parades and dances.

Yet, beneath their mysteriously gaudy exteriors, there is more to the suits than mere rhinestone and feathers- the Montana's suits were a catalyst for cultural change.

Before Tootie, the tradition of the Mardi Gras Indians was often nothing more than a flimsy excuse to act out violence. Bad blood between neighborhood gangs built up during the year, more often than not exploding furiously once the masks and costumes were donned- their inhabitants freed from guilt and human decency by their loss of identity, combined with a sort of ritualized mob mentality.

After Tootie came along, there was a decided shift. This was his contribution- his great gift to the culture. He won disagreements not with fisticuffs, but by flaunting how much more decorative and flashy his suit was. By going to such extremes of decorative obsession, Tootie purposely sought to create feelings of jealously and envy in those less beautifully dressed. Now the competition was based on who was the prettiest, who had the best suit.

Soon everyone was trying to make a nicer suit than Tootie's- and this made for a very dramatic change of dynamic. The suits took hundreds of man hours, and often it was a bonding opportunity- with family members sitting around the kitchen table together sewing and discussing neighborhood gossip. Families grew closer, and kids who might have been out on the streets perpetuating gang violence instead found themselves coming straight home from school, eager to help with the suit. Cooperation and love went into the creation of something extraordinarily beautiful, meant to be worn for only one day, and then hung up in the closet to collect dust while focus was turned to next years outfit, the sewing of which often began the very next day after the Ash Wednesday mass.

Thus, quite single-handedly, Tootie championed the virtues of hard work, cooperation and patience over brute force and competition based on violence. Soon, others would follow 'suit', and Fat Tuesday, and indeed the entire culture felt the positive change impacted by one man (and woman) and their needles. Joyce still cries over Tootie.

"But dat's ok" she says with a warm smile:

"I know he's up there making a suit that would make god hisself proud."