Positive vibrations HeartBeat Award (Culture Bearer) Clarence “Delco” Dalcour

Clarence Dalcour, 71, is a soft-spoken man who as Big Chief Delco of the Creole Osceola displays old-time Black Indian ways that he acquired through listening and observing the elder chiefs.

- GERALDINE WYCKOFF

Chief Delco, whose nickname refers to the Delco battery, became interested in the Indians through his father and uncle who would follow the Yellow Pocahontas gang led by Big Chief Allison “Tootie” Montana. When Dalcour was growing up in Vascoville [in Gentilly] there was only one Mardi Gras Indian in the area, the now-notorious Wildman Rock who roamed dumpsites in search of items for his suit. “I remember him from when I was a little boy,” says Dalcour. “He used to walk with a cane and he was wild!” Since Dalcour’s grandmother lived across the street from Montanas’ North Villere Street home, they headed there on Carnival day.

When Dalcour returned to New Orleans in 1969 after serving in the military in the Vietnam War, he asked Chief Tootie Montana if he could join the Yellow Pocahontas. “It was something to do, something to keep my mind off of what I was going through—it was calming and peaceful.”

“I learned a lot from my tribe—I used to talk to Tootie a lot and to Hatchet Fazio [Ray “Big Chief Hatchet” Fazio] and just all the people. Tootie made me a trail chief and kept me close to him. Only a big chief gives you that important position.”