Corey Rayford didn’t aspire to be a big chief.

For years, Rayford, 43, was content to be second-in-command under his older cousin, Lionel Delpit, Jr., the original big chief of the Black Feather Mardi Gras Indian tribe.

In a tradition that dates back to at least the 1880s, every year at the end of carnival season, African Americans in New Orleans “mask as Indian,” debuting colorful, Native American-style outfits. Members of Black Feather and the city’s other two dozen tribes are known as “Mardi Gras Indians.”

This year on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras morning, Black Feather’s 20 members did what they have done for more than 20 years: they gathered at family homes on Frenchmen Street in the 7th Ward and fastened together beaded and feathered aprons, wings, and crowns until they were transformed into Indians.

Once in full regalia, they stepped outside to the delight of waiting family and friends. Accompanied by a group of percussionists playing drums and tambourines, they danced and sang, moving through the streets of 7th Ward.

No one got in their way. When Indians step on to the streets of New Orleans, traffic stops to allow them to cross.