check this out!! Long story short, or more accurately medium... through any number of coincidences and happenstances we ended up getting to see this fantastic display/parade of the mardi gras indians. Now my understanding of all of this is rudimentary at best... but here goes. In the old days black people were not allowed to participate in the mardi gras celebrations/parades. so they had their own celebrations in other parts of the city. To honor the Indian tribes that protected the run away slaves they began to dress up as indians and developed "tribes" and like the 'krews" of the more traditional mardi gras parades had a hierarchy and structure of their own. any hoo...
They don't have a set route for their parades even today, but on st. Joseph's day (after mardi gras) they all gather and have another parade and celebration in a park. This year the traditional St. Joseph's day gathering aka Super Sunday, was postponed because of rain and it happened to be when we were there. It was amazing:

the scenes you see on their fronts and backs are all beaded. The detail is absolutely amazing. It takes a full year to make these costumes and cost thousands in materials not to mentions the time involved.
these people in blue are from the 9th ward.
the head dresses can weigh 150 pounds



there were bands that marched along with the "indians" and you could just go along as part of the parade if you wanted to, or stand on the side and take pic's. I've never in my life seen anything like this. And as it turns out just got to see it as a matter of luck. It couldn't have been planned. what a dang blast this trip to New Orleans was. The whole thing was like this in the sense that just by luck we'd end up in the middle of one exciting event after the next. I keep thinking, perhaps I'm done having to go there... but you know, maybe not....