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At first glance, the Montana family home on North Villere Street is a charming double shotgun with detailed touches, like many others in the Seventh Ward. With a closer look, though, you notice features you do not see on other houses – unique arched openings in the handrails, decorative cut-aways in the transom windows, and, centered on the front of the house, a cast plaster face of Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana wearing an Indian headdress. “Tootie used to always say, ‘I have to put some of my work in my house,’” Joyce Montana, the wife of the late Big Chief, explains about the mini-monuments to her husband’s legacy as a celebrated plasterer and lather all around and inside her house. “He always had a measuring stick,” Joyce notes, articulating how the Chief’s work in the building trades complemented the kind of creativity and geometry needed to craft the dazzling, three-dimensional Indian suits Tootie is famed for. Known as the “Chief of Chiefs,” Tootie masked Indian for 52 years, 50 of them consecutively, and now his son Darryl Montana heads the family tribe, the Yellow Pocahontas, bringing his own signature innovations to Indian suit design. Large meals and fellowship at the Montana house in the Seventh Ward have been an integral part of designing and sewing the family’s Indian regalia, and Joyce continues to cook up her popular gumbo, fried fish, and potato salad and have extended family over to visit. A professional at intricate bead and sequin work, Joyce has puts in countless hours at her dining room table sewing for the Montana Indian clan. Joyce’s son, Charles Andrews, is her next door neighbor; he sews on his brother Darryl’s suits and deejays the famous street parties that make North Villere Street such a popular Carnival destination.

Address: North Villere Street

Neighborhood: Seventh Ward

Historic District: New Marigny (National)

City Council District:C 

Status: Big Chief Darryl Montana and the Yellow Pocahontas have come out every Mardi Gras and Saint Joseph’s Night on North Villere since Hurricane Katrina. Darryl and his wife, Sabrina Montana, are working to raise funds to build the Tootie Montana Museum at a dedicated lot on North Claiborne Avenue at Dumaine.

Cornerstones has more in-depth documentation on file – info@cornerstonesproject.org.