Lionel Delpit, icon of the Mardi Gras Indian community, dies at age 54

18th July 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

“Scream my name,” Big Chief Black Feather Lionel Delpit encouraged on the 1998 CD United We Stand, Divided We Fall. The chief of the 7th Ward Mardi Gras Indian gang was one of a select group of exceptional Black Indian vocalists, collectively dubbed Indians of the Nation, featured on the historic recording.

Since his death on Thursday, July 7, 2011, the name Big Chief Lionel Delpit has reverberated throughout his neighborhood as Indians, Black Feather followers, friends, family and brass bands gathered to pay tribute to this icon of the Mardi Gras Indian community.

“He just lived for the Mardi Gras Indians,” says Corey Rayford, who is Delpit’s first cousin and Second Chief of the Black Feather. “That’s all he knew all his life.”

When he was still a child, Chief Delpit began masking with the Yellow Pocahontas under his uncle Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana. In many ways, it was an all in the family endeavor as another uncle, Darryl “Poppa Tom” Lewis encouraged Delpit and, according to Rayford, constructed Delpit’s first suit. From the start, Delpit was hooked on the Indian culture and ran Spyboy with the Yellow Pocahontas with just a few breaks until he formed the Black Feather in 1992.

Big Chief Delpit stood as a complete Indian renowned for his singing, designing, sewing and dancing as well as his overall leadership. Big Chief Montana’s influences were evidenced in the intricate three-dimensional designs of Delpit’s spectacular suits. For Mardi Gras 2011 as well as this year’s St. Joseph’s night and the Uptown Indian Sunday Parade, the chief came out in a magnificent pink suit. On it were 20 little Indian dolls dressed in suits that represented those he had created and worn through the decades.

“He told me, ‘This is going to be my last one,’” Rayford remembers. He goes on to explain that the hearts and stars-themed doll depicted the first suit Delpit wore as Chief Black Feather. Delpit donned the peacock suit as a Spyboy with the Yellow Pocahontas. Other motifs included sharks, lizards and more.

“The suits that he made he really took his time to put them together,” says Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, who got to know Delpit when the two were young men. “We used to go to the downtown practices and he used to come to the uptown practices. Him and I sort of had the same style of singing. He sings like the old school that we were taught when we were kids. You couldn’t have met a greater person than Lionel. When you’re good, they can’t take it away from you. He was a great Indian.”

Delpit’s decision to leave the Yellow Pocahontas to form his own gang was far from a snap judgment. “All his life, since he was a little kid – before my time – he always did say he was going to be a chief,” says Rayford, 39, who left his position as Flagboy with the Yellow Pocahontas to become the Black Feather’s Spyboy. In 1997 he moved to the position of Second Chief. Rayford adds that Jerome Smith, head of the Tambourine & Fan organization, recently mentioned that when Lionel was just 13 he said to him, “Mr. Smith, when I get older, I’m going to be a chief.”

The much-respected Chief Black Feather held onto old-time Indian ways. He avoided having his gang use extraneous instruments, preferring instead the ring of the tambourines. Delpit’s keen sense of rhythm and timing stood out on the streets as well as on another cut from the Indians of the Nation album, “Shallow Water.” As leader, he kept the classic Indian chant rolling.

Delpit was seen in an episode in the 2010 edition of “Treme” the HBO television series where he and other authentic Black New Orleans Indians sang “Indian Red.” His latest endeavor was singing the lead part of “Let’s Go Get ‘Em” on the ReBirth Brass Band’s 2011 disc ReBirth of New Orleans.

“He made a great contribution to help keep the (Indian) game alive,” says Fred Johnson, who masked Spyboy in the Yellow Pocahontas when Delpit was in the gang. “It’s a loss and he’s going to be missed.”

“He would always say ‘I’m the chief of the nation. Everybody wants to see me,’” Rayford remembers. “He loved him some Mardi Gras.”

Services for Lionel Delpit were held on Saturday, July 16, 2011, at the Abiding Faith Temple followed by a ceremonial Mardi Gras Indian procession.

This article was originally published in the July 18, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper