Victor Harris, the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi – 55 years of spreading joy

17th February 2020   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

Often on Carnival Day even before one catches a glimpse of Victor Harris, the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi’s magnificently beaded suits, you know the Big Chief and the Mandingo Warriors are on their way when the chant, “Who they talk about? Fi-Yi-Yi!” fills the air. With African drums beating and tambourines ringing, the arrival creates excitement within the awaiting crowd. It’s an energy that originates from the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi in his pursuit to bring, love, joy, healing, awareness, laughter and fun to the community.

This Mardi Gras, Harris will celebrate his 55th anniversary masking Indian and having made a new suit each year since he started “running flag” in 1965 with the Yellow Pocahontas under Big Chief Tootie Montana. In 1984, the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi emerged and Harris created his African-inspired style and established his own gang, the Mandingo Warriors.

“That’s my mission, bringing people together – that’s what it’s all about,” says Harris, a chief who is notably vibrant on the streets and in his activism in the interests of the Black community. Carnival 2020 will be especially poignant for the chief who will be retiring from the position of leading the Mandingo Warriors due to knee problems. “I would never say that, well, I’m going to stop masking,” Harris absolutely declares adding that possible knee surgery could prevent his always energized wanderings on the holiday. “I’m in good health – everything else is beautiful and I’ll be involved with it and I’ll definitely be involved in making more suits. I will be doing it until I can’t do it. I would love to do it forever, honestly.”

Next year, his son, “Little” Victor, who will be by Harris’ side as Second Chief in 2020, will take over as Chief of the Mandingo Warriors. “He’s good at it,” declares Fi-Yi-Yi. “He knows how to handle himself out there. Last Mardi Gras I was really sick and my son took control of the tribe and from what people told me he did a tremendous job. I’ll help him out somewhat but I want him to know you got to sew. Harris describes his other son, Curtis, as a messenger and runner for the tribe. Curtis also purchased a building near the Musicians Village that will soon house Fi-Yi-Yi’s Black Seeds of Culture Museum. Brightly painted in purple, green and gold, the building has multiple rooms for displaying Harris’ incredibly artful and intricately beaded suits and masks, space for a gift shop where handmade patches and other articles can be purchased, a back deck for performances that looks onto a yard and another building. A “fish stream” has already been constructed and just the image of it can bring a smile.

Since his emergence as Fi-Yi-Yi, Harris has expressed his respect for the African culture and his love of beauty and nature through his beading and artwork. Butterflies fluttering in a garden of flowers will adorn Fi-Yi-Yi’s gorgeous suit this year. “What’s more beautiful than a butterfly?” he asks. “They are nature, beauty, compassion and love.” Harris is aided in creating his suits by Jack “Mr. Jack” Robinson who took over as master sewer at the passing of Harris’ longtime friend, Collins “Coach” Lewis. “He’s the master of all of the things that Coach did,” says Harris of Mr. Jack who has been sewing for Fi-Yi-Yi for over 30 years. Surprisingly, when Mr. Jack first started beading, he had never picked up a needle and thread in his life and still has no desire to mask Indian.

Harris looks to his African roots in often utilizing the lovely, small cowrie shells to adorn his suits. He explains that cowrie shells are used in African nations as decorations and jewelry and have been treated as currency. “They were like cash money,” he declares. He’s noticed that people are starting to understand their significance and they have become popular in jewelry making. “Everyone in my tribe is using them now.”

A certain heartbreak still remains in Harris’ voice when he speaks of being “banished” from the Yellow Pocahontas in 1984. He won’t speak of the reason as he remains loyal to the gang – “I just love these people” – though one could speculate that his pain led him to greater things.

“Everything seemed hopeless to me — I had no tribe,” Harris once recalled.” I was banned from the Yellow Pocahontas which was my community, my livelihood and everything else. And I loved masking Mardi Gras Indian. The only thing that I could do was to pray.”

“It was at night, I was all alone. I turned off every light in the house, the clock that was ticking, I stopped that from happening. I made sure the TV and the refrigerator were unplugged because I didn’t want to hear a humming sound. I just wanted to be alone with the spirit in the dark.”

“I woke up that next morning and I felt very good and I just started stretching and flexing my arms and started to say ‘Yi-Yi.’ Suddenly I stopped and then I said ‘Fi-Yi-Yi’ and the third time I screamed it ‘Fi-Yi-Yi.’ That was the first time the word was ever mentioned. That’s when the spirit hit me. That was my given spiritual cultural name and it represented Africa.”

“That’s when the transformation took place. I wasn’t an Indian anymore. Everything changed – my sewing changed. I didn’t sew no more like the Yellow Pocahontas. That was my blessing the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi. It was the beginning of who I am right now. There was more to that first black suit in terms of what it meant not just to me but to the culture.”

Harris believes that the late Chief Tootie Montana, who masked Indian for a remarkable 52 years, would be proud that he surpassed that singular accomplishment. “I’m a member of Tootie’s tribe – I am a born Yellow Pocahontas,” declares Harris, who still considers himself a member of Montana’s tribe. “He’s my chief until death – my only chief,” Harris strongly declares. “It’s like he is passing the torch to me. Tootie put in all those years. Who ever thought somebody else would do that? Tootie made a brand new suit every year. There’s honor in that. That’s what it’s all about.”

Fi-Yi-Yi and the Mandingo Warriors will hit the streets this year with somewhere between 15 and 20 members masking. They plan to emerge from Joan Rhodes’ property on Barracks Street between N. Rampart Street and Henriette Delille Street. It’s just around the corner from the Backstreet Cultural Museum where the Mardi Gras party rolls all day starting at the break of dawn with the Northside Skull & Bone Gang noisily rallying folks to wake up. The festivities continue with costumed revelers, Mardi Gras Indians and Baby Dolls stopping by throughout the day.

“That’s my headquarters – that’s definitely my camp,” Harris declares of the Backstreet. “I always believed in Sylvester (Sylvester Francis, the museum’s curator) because he believed in what he wanted to do. He calls me his chief – we are one.”

As Fi-Yi-Yi takes over the streets on Carnival Day, those who are faint of heart might want to stand clear of the always dramatic chief who has lots of fun ferociously running up to unsuspecting folks to give them a thrill. “I try make people part of what I do,” Harris explains.

“You’ve got to have activity. You’ve got to keep a certain amount of fear of some kind in it. I go into people’s faces, look them in the eye and look ‘em up and down like I’m sizing them up so they go home with a story to tell. I have fun with the children because they can’t see what I’m thinking. I’ll be laughing behind the mask but they don’t know that. You have to put a little bit of everything in it.”

Victor Harris, the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi will forever spread his joy whether he’s masked or unmasked, leading the Mandingo Warriors or working the needle and thread at his home workshop or at his new museum. His passion, art, sense of dedication to and love of his community and the Black Indian Nation come from deep within.

“Truly I’m a walking spirit,” says Harris. “When people see the Spirit of Fi-Yi-Yi they feel good. They rise. I am who I am in and out of the suit.”

Public tourism body changes its mission under plan from Mayor Cantrell
By Michael Isaac Stein
The Lens

The board of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, or NOTMC, voted to drastically change the organization’s mission at a Monday meeting.

The changes still need to be ratified by the City Council before they’re final, but if and when that happens, the organization will change from a marketing agency for the city’s tourism industry to a fund that supports New Orleans’ “cultural economy and culture-bearers.” The organization’s name would become the “New Orleans Tourism and Cultural Fund.”

The NOTMC board includes three council members — Helena Moreno, Jay Banks and Kristin Palmer. All voted in favor of the changes on Monday, making it likely that the proposal will pass through the full council as well.

“For a long time there have been culture-bearers who want to and feel that they need to get more of their fair shake,” said Josh Cox, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s Director of Strategic Initiatives. “And we hope that with this vote and the creation of this fund, we’ll be able to create some of that long term revenue.”

The new fund will have roughly $3.9 million to dole out this year. But exactly what this fund will look like and where the money will go is still largely unclear.

On February 10, the NOTMC board voted to alter the organization’s bylaws and articles of incorporation. There were two major changes.

First, the board changed the first item on its list of “purposes and powers” in its articles of incorporation. The board removed language about advertising and marketing to tourists around the world and replaced it with a new mission: “To support the cultural economy and culture-bearers of the City of New Orleans through programs and projects, and to advance, promote and maintain tourism that is equitable and sustainable.”

Second, the votes changed the makeup of the board. Under the changes, the board would shrink from 15 members to just seven. Four of them would be “culture bearers” or “individuals with expertise in the cultural economy” appointed by the mayor. The other three seats would be taken by council members: the District B council member, the District C council member and a third member of the council’s choosing. District B covers the Central Business District and much of Mid-City and Uptown while District C covers the French Quarter, Marigny, Bywater, Algiers and parts of Treme.

But aside from those two concrete alterations, no more details were added explaining who is eligible for grants, what the application and decision making process will be or what rubric the new board will use to determine how the money is dispersed.

At a previous meeting, board member Sheila Burns pointed out that the term “cultural economy” is still undefined.

“Cultural economy is such a global term,” she said. “It may be prudent to put some kind of definition to that.”

The board didn’t end up adding any more details, but Cox pointed out that there are still checks to ensure the money is being spent properly and opportunities for the public to provide their input. The meetings of the new board, which will decide many of these details, would still be open to the public. And the new fund would still have to submit an annual spending plan to the City Council for approval, just as NOTMC currently does.

The changes to NOTMC are the result of Cantrell’s “fair share deal” that she brokered with state officials and the hospitality industry last year in hopes of dedicating more hotel taxes to local infrastructure projects, particularly at the Sewerage and Water Board. The deal included a host of trade-offs between the city and hospitality industry.

One facet of the plan was that the majority of NOTMC’s budget and duties would be absorbed by New Orleans and Co., a private-nonprofit formerly known as the Convention and Visitors Bureau. The vast majority of NOTMC’s funding and responsibilities were transferred to New Orleans and Co. at the end of last year.

During city budget hearings in the fall, several council members expressed concerns about the lack of accountability for the millions of dollars being transferred from NOTMC, a public body, to New Orleans and Co., a private nonprofit.

In 2019, NOTMC took in $16.5 million in revenue. Most of that will go to New Orleans and Co. this year, leaving NOTMC with just $5.7 million. The 2020 NOTMC budget reserves $1.8 million for some remaining responsibilities, including cash payments to Essence Festival and the Super Bowl Hosting Committee.

That leaves $3.9 million left over, stemming from an occupancy tax dedicated to funding NOTMC. In 2019, former NOTMC CEO Mark Romig told the council the money could be used “for infrastructure or other purposes of the city.”

The fair share deal is supposed to bring New Orleans $27 million in revenue every year. Part of that calculation was the $3.9 million brought in by the hotel occupancy tax. The city will now have to find that money somewhere else.

Cox said the money was going to the new fund instead of infrastructure for two reasons. First, he said it was “the right thing to do” for the city’s culture bearers. Second, he said that the tax was originally passed in the name of economic development, making it legally difficult to divert those funds to infrastructure.

“The administration is working to ensure that every dollar that was promised to be spent on infrastructure, will be spent on infrastructure,” Cox said during the meeting. “This culture fund is not being spent at the expense of infrastructure.”

It remains unclear how the city will fill the $3.9 million hole.

“We’re working on it, but we’re confident,” Cox told The Lens after the meeting.

The above article originally appeared in The Lens on its website (www.thelensnola.org). The Louisiana Weekly enjoys a partnership with The Lens.

This article originally published in the February 17, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.