The hand-sewn suits worn by Black Masking Indians take a year to build and get worn a handful of times before the maker starts over. Three small museums in New Orleans keep the finished work where people can see it, and none of them operates like a conventional institution.
1. Backstreet Cultural Museum, Tremé
Sylvester Francis marched with the Gentlemen of Leisure Social Aid & Pleasure Club and started displaying photographs and memorabilia in his two-car garage in 1988. Indian tribes began donating suits. Tour groups started showing up. The museum opened formally in 1999 and holds one of the largest collections of these suits anywhere, alongside material on jazz funerals, second lines, and the North Side Skull & Bone Gang.
Location has changed, and old listings have not caught up. Hurricane Ida damaged the former funeral home on Henriette Delille Street in 2021, and the museum reopened at 1531 St. Philip Street in July 2022. Anyone navigating to the old address will find a building that no longer houses it.
The museum functions as more than a display case. Second lines begin and end there. Indians and the Skull & Bone Gang gather there on Mardi Gras morning. Neighborhood schoolchildren find relatives in the photographs on the walls. Hours run 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, closed Sunday and Monday. Admission sources vary between a $10 adult ticket and a $20 donation, so bring cash and ask. Photography is allowed, video is not.
2. House of Dance & Feathers, Lower Ninth Ward
This one sits in a backyard. Ronald W. Lewis started it in 2000 as a shed where he taught neighborhood children about the culture, after his wife told him the feathers and memorabilia had taken over the house. It has operated on Tupelo Street since 2003…