Mardi Gras 2020 is over. Yet for Michael Dunware, the real work is just beginning.

His father, Big Chief of the Black Masking Indian tribe Wild Red Flames, has set down the needle and thread for good. For the better part of two decades, Big Chief David Perry led the tribe through the rigorous preparations for New Orleans' big day. All of the elaborately beaded masking suits went through his hands.

Now Dunware, 31, must step up to learn every skill of Black Masking Indian culture if he is to take over as Chief.