NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Mardi Gras Indian culture runs deep, and not all the tribe members are men! WGNO’s Stephanie Oswald had the pleasure and honor to spend time with the Big Queen of the 8th Ward Black Seminole tribe, Angel Chung Cutno.
Chung Cutno was working on her third suit, with about 10 days to go before Mardi Gras 2024.
She brought our crew to a secret location where her second suit is on display and revealed a few beautiful sections of her very first suit. The theme of the first suit was Birds; the theme of her second suit was Powerful Black Women.
“So, we’re seeing Black women of the past, present and future, and we have Angela Davis and she’s actually on a black beret, and then, Queen Nefertiti,” she explained.
Her tribe is very small, just three people: “So, we have our chief and we have a wild man, and we have me, the Queen.”
“When I’m in my suit, women get very excited to see me, and I love that, I love to empower women,” says Chung Cutno.
“I take my work with me everywhere, I have a little bag, I sit in staff meetings and I bead, I bring it to cafes, I was beading on the airplane yesterday — because if I don’t have it with me then I’m thinking about doing it.”
She’s never had formal training.
“I truly feel like this was a gift given to me from the ancestors, because nobody ever taught me this, I just sat down and did it one day.”
According to Mardi Gras Indian tradition, each suit can only be worn for one year. And the finished products aren’t revealed until Mardi Gras Day. She gave us two clues to this year’s theme: “Nature” and “Gator,” so if you see an Indian with a giant alligator around her neck, it’s a good chance it will be Chung Cutno.
“It’s about the cultural aspect and that this doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world, and that’s so grounding. It just reminds me that this is bigger than me, this is bigger than this suit, this is bigger than all the suits put together, this is about a story that we are just continuing to tell.”
It’s magnificent storytelling art, on display in a unique gallery: the streets of New Orleans.
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