Join us for the 2-day Golden Crown event honoring Big Chief Darryl Montana's 50 years of masking and collective 150 year legacy at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.
DAY 1:
2:00 PM-3:00 PM, Friday, January 6, 2023-Opening of the Golden Crown: Celebrating the 150 Year Black Masking Legacy of Darryl Montana Exhibit at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. The exhibit opening will take place in the Education Center.
3:30 PM-5:00 PM-From the Jazz Museum, we will proceed to the Big Chief Tootie Montana statue in Louis Armstrong Park for a wreath-laying ceremony.
DAY 2:
9:30 AM-11:30 AM, Saturday, January 7, 2023-Black Masking Indian Bus Tour-Departs in front of the New Orleans Jazz Museum. This excursion will take us on an adventure through the streets of New Orleans from Downtown to Backatown to Uptown exploring the roots, rituals, and routes of the Black Masking Indians. Box lunch included. The Tour is a paid event. Please click here for tickets!
12:30 PM-4:30 PM-Golden Crown Symposium-Enjoy 3 panel discussions exploring the intricacies of suit building and the history of the building trade in Creole Louisiana, everyday life and heritage in old New Orleans, who the Indians were, and live music. Meet the next generation and hear the stories! The symposium will take place in the Third-Floor Performance Center.
Hear from master craftsman and building artists Jeff Poree and Charlie Gibson who were raised in the trade and worked with Big Chief Allison Tootie Montana. New Orleans is surrounded by skillfully designed and built architecture. We will hear the history of the building arts here in Louisiana and how that trade landed into the hands of the Black Masking Indians.
Next, we will learn about Creole heritage and everyday life in New Orleans. Our language, foodways, and religion. Who were the Black Masking Indians outside the world of Mardi Gras?
Lastly, we will delve into the musical spirit of the Black Masking Indians. We will meet and greet with the next generation, the Big Chiefs, and the music makers in celebration and conversation.
The panel discussion portion of the event is a paid event.
Please click here for tickets!
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Darryl Montana is the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas “Hunters” Black “masking” Indian Tribe. In the late 1800s, the New Orleans Indigenous Black Indian movement of “masking Indian” on Carnival Day began in the Montana family. Hailing from a prominent family of Black masking Indians and son of the Chief of Chiefs Allison “Big Chief Tootie” Montana, he uses sequins, beads, pearls, marabou, feathers and stones to create multi-dimensional Mardi Gras costumes for each year’s carnival in New Orleans. The techniques and use of materials have been passed down to him from his father.
He began learning how to string beads at age six and made his first suit when he was eleven using a used vinyl raincoat as his canvas. His suits can take up to 5,000 hours to complete and they are in response to themes like metamorphosis and evolution. He says that on Carnival day, “he is in full regalia representing a culture that unites the community around the tradition of masking and simply being the prettiest.” In addition to creating these massive pieces, Montana passes his techniques on to children and teaches them how to construct sculptural costumes. Montana’s work is in the public collections of the International Folk Art Museum and the Joan Mitchell Foundation and private collections of the late John Scott, Diego Cortez, Ron Bechet, and Mapo Kinnord-Payton, to name a few.
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Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana was the Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian Tribe and “Chief of Chiefs,” the acknowledged leader of all the New Orleans tribes, for many years. A deeply respected, even revered, figure, he is credited with ushering in a new era of peace and nonviolence in the Mardi Gras Indian cultural tradition in New Orleans. By emphasizing the beauty and grandeur of the tribes with their colorful parades and astonishing costumes, Montana played a key role in preserving and sustaining one of New Orleans’ most distinctive cultural traditions for future generations.
Montana was born in New Orleans on December 16, 1922. His father, Alfred, was Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas tribe for nearly twenty years. After World War II, the younger Montana co-founded the Monogram Hunters tribe and became its Big Chief in 1947. He married Joyce Francis in 1956, and soon after became Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas tribe, a position he held for 40 years. He was universally recognized as the tribes’ leader both literally and spiritually, a brilliant artist and an eloquent ambassador and spokesman for the tribes.