Mardi Gras has been celebrated in Louisiana since the seventeenth century, when French settlers introduced the custom, and it was established in New Orleans by the mid-eighteenth century. Translated as “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras marks the Lent season with a series of festivities that include parades, parties, Carnival balls, costumes, and revelry. Several major groups or “krewes” are the primary organizers of the annual Mardi Gras Day parades, with roots deep in the nineteenth century. The imagery on this heavily beaded apron, depicting an American Indian in elaborate traditional dress, suggests that it may have been made by a participant in the Mardi Gras Indian parades. Long excluded from the parades organized by white krewes, African Americans in the region established their own celebrations as an alternative. Over time, these grew into prestigious events in their own right and assumed aspects of American Indian symbolism as an homage to the shelter and assistance Native Americans had provided throughout the period of slavery.

Stacy C. Hollander, "Mardi Gras Apron," exhibition label for Ooh, Shiny!. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2012.