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The White Eagles: Passing It On |
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Tuesday, 31 January 2006 06:23 |
The White Eagles
Passing It On
By John Sinclair
The undisputed pride of the Sixth Ward, the mighty White Eagles of the Mardi Gras Indian Nation have long ruled Treme under the leadership of Big Chief Jake Millon and his Spyboy Nate--known as the Spyboy of the Nation.
White Eagles Chief Eugene Thomas is 59 and has been masking Indian since the mid-1940s, when an uncle taught him to sew and passed along the Wild Indian traditions. Now in the fullness of his maturity, Eugene has dedicated himself to making Indians of his five grandsons, working with them to teach the lore and unveil the secrets of constructing their indescribably beautiful outfits. I m doing this to keep it alive in my family, he says with a proud smile.
I sat with Eugene Thomas and his grandsons Walter Moorhead, Leon Thomas and Kendrick Thomas one afternoon in April to learn what they were up to.
Leon Thomas: I been maskin since I was two.
Kendrick Thomas: This was my first year.
Walter Moorhead: Grandpa, he sew everything. We watch him to learn how.
Leon: I sewed that big stone on.
Walter: My first year, I was watchin him when he was sewin . On Mardi Gras we mask and we do the Indian dances. My daddy teach me at home. This is my third year, and it's his fourth [pointing to Leon].
Leon: I m seven now. I been maskin since I was two.
Kendrick: Grandpa asked him if he wanted to be an Indian, and he said yeah.
Merline: It's more than a dance, it's an attitude. You gotta show that you got that attitude before you can get a suit.
Leon: Mean, brah.
Eugene Thomas: The little-bitty one been maskin since he was two, and the biggest one [Kendrick], he just masked two years--no, he says three years, and he's nine now.
How I got em started, they come by my house and watch me sew, and I asked them did they want to try it. That little one jumped quick. The biggest one, he didn t like it at first, until after the little one started masking.
The littlest one, he already learned how to stone, him. He put on the brooches, then he went around them with the beads, and then he went around them with the stones. Now, see, what I m gonna do, I m gonna get some canvas and put it on a rack, and make like totem poles and shields, and let em go to beadin . Because he can bead. I know he can stone, but the beadwork that's what I wanna teach him next.
Me, I been sewin since I was eight years old. I was makin my crown when I was nine. And when I was makin crowns, we didn t have feathers like this--we didn t have the colored feathers, we had to go to Jake Bruno's chicken place, where they used to kill the turkeys, and snatch the feathers out of em before they get the blood on em, when they cut their necks, and we used to get the white ones. Because I had two uncles who used to work out at the chicken place, and they would pull all the feathers out when the people buy em--he would pull all the tail feathers and the wings and bring those home.
I came up under my uncle, when I was a little kid, and that was 1950 or 52, I believe it was, when I started maskin . But he d been maskin --oh, man, for years and years and years, way in the 20s, him. His name was Lionel Pierce. They used to call him Rock.
Man, I came up when it was rough--it was real rough. I was masking when they was really fightin . I was maskin way before [White Eagles Big Chief] Jake and them were maskin . I made Jake's first crown. I taught him how to make a crown, when he put his first suit on. I done taught some of em how to make crowns--and to sew.
When I work with these youngsters, I sit down--I sit down and get books, I go by the art shop and get books and take pictures out of it, get the carbon paper and show em how to trace the drawings--step by step I show em what they got to do.
Like I tell em, I m getting old, now it's gonna have to be up to y all. The one that broke out first was that little one [Leon]. He said, Well, when you get too old, and you can t see, I ma see, and I ma make yours. I said, Well, I m glad of that, because that ain t too far from now. Because I been in the game a long time let's see, I m 59 now, and when I first put it on I was about 8 or 9. The year I masked, the next year, they didn t have no Carnival that year--that was the year the war was coming on, and they didn t have no Carnival. So I masked that year before, and the next year they didn t have no Carnival, and the next year, from that on, I always masked.
See, up until about 1951, 52, they was still fightin --oh yes indeed. Everything else after that was competition with suits, um hmm, but man, I remember lookin at split heads, and stabbin , and all kinda stuff. And I used to always say, What make em fight, you know? But, it was territorial. And if you go out in their territory and you looked better than them, you had to fight to get out of it.
You know how rough it was? Janes Alley was right by the precinct, and nary a police would come out. That's what struck me when I was small: the whole police station right there, and the Indians are fightin right in Janes Alley, and no police would come out the station and break it up. They would let it go. I m tellin ya, I used to be so mad. Yes indeed, man, Janes Alley.... And then we used to go uptown--Cabbage Alley, up in GertTown, and the people used to put us in the house while the big Indians were out there fightin . Both gangs, if they had chirren in the gang, they d put the chirrens in the house so they don t get hurt.
And after all that--whoever get cut or get their stuff chopped up and all that, they shake hands and you go your way and they go their way. It's over with. But, that's all on account of territorial and how pretty you was.
I was maskin with the Cheyenne Hunters, offa Rushablade [Rocheblave] and Conti, and we used to come all the way down to Treme, to Dumaine and Marais and all that, and then we headed uptown.
We d go back up, and we d hit Broad--they didn t have the overpass then, cuz they didn t have that I-10 and shit then. We used to walk that, walk right on around--they didn t have the precinct there then, just the House of D[etention]. And we used to turn the corner right there on White Street, and Janes Alley was right up in there, cuttin up in there, and that's where they d be battlin . Police station right there.
You might run across gangs from anywhere, because they were tryin to get to your territory and keep you in your territory. That was the thing, to leave early enough to jam you right there, jam you right in your territory like that. See, they d be tryin to catch us there, but we d already caught the other gang up in their territory.
We used to come out at five o clock in the morning. See, the Spy Boy be knockin at our door, 5 o clock in the morning. Cuz the Spy Boy come to pick up all the gang and then bring it to the Chief. And then we sing our Indian Red, and our prayers, and then we head out.
[Pointing at Leon:] You know what he do? When they gang up and there be Indians all around him, he ll break out of the crowd and run around to the front. And he ll meet anybody he ll run and meet anybody, that little boy.
One time the boy told me--I was meetin Hatchet and his gang, and I broke out on him. The boy say, Hold up! I thought somethin was wrong with him. He say, Let me get him. I got him--you can stand back, I got him.
I said, I m supposed to get him, I m bigger than you. And he say, Oh man, you somethin else. I wanted to get him. And he was three years old then, so you know how he is now. Man, we have to keep close on him, keep him close to us, because if he see a gang, he gonna run meet em. Leon gonna run get em.
And my other grandson, the biggest one, Tyrone, was four [when he started masking]. See, Tyrone, when you meet him, you re in trouble you re in trouble with him. He ll run ya down to the dogs, him.
I m doing this to keep it alive in my family. I got one more of my grandsons that's Pie's little boy, Antony--and then I ll have all my grandsons, the biggest ones.
The next generation, I m going to my great-grandsons. They ain t big enough yet. They got one, little Cary, he's about five years old, but I ain t been around him, to teach him. But I m gonna start takin him by my house, bring him over here--they live on the other side of the river--and I m gonna bring him over here and start lettin him get acquainted to this stuff here.
But that little one, man, you got trouble with him. He get mad, and he don t care what size you is. You can be a giant, but if you got feathers on, he wants you. He wants you--he ain t shuckin , he wants you.
What killed me dead, man, I m out there getting ready to break down on a dude, and he ran in front of me. I got him, brah, I got him. Let me get him. The big Indian had to laugh. He say, What you got? Leon say, I got you.
Oh yeah, he say, I got you. I m the Chief. That dude says, Yeah, you is the Chief--you got more nerve than I got, little as you is. Because I know I m an Indian.
I like the spirit in him. And that's what I do--I bring it out in them.
When I mask, I mask to be the best, or close to the best. I do my best, and you ain t gonna see nobody with all them aprons I got. Did you see them aprons on the inside? There's five aprons on the front of that cape--three on the inside, and another one on the back.
When I sew, I don t sew to be second best--I sew to go! When I tell em I m maskin , I m comin . I ain t half-steppin . And they know that. I don t be half-steppin .
--New Orleans
April 1996
(c) 1996, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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