North Side Skull and Bones Gang wakes up Tremé before sunrise Mardi Gras morning

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — It’s Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans and the North Side Skull and Bones Gang is waking everyone up ahead of the festivities.

For over a century, the group has had the duty of waking up neighborhoods before sunrise by knocking on doors, banging drums and chanting to the ancestors spreading a message of peace.

In the midst of the fun, the group, dressed in black with handmade paper mache skull heads, sends out a warning from the skull and bones gang to live a proper life or you too can perish.

“If you don’t live right, the Bone Man is commin’ for ya.”

According to the group’s deep history, its roots date back to 1819 and they believe their actions are “the literal meaning of carnival, the shedding of flesh.”

Every Mardi Gras, they start in the Tremé neighborhood and make their way through with thousands following the group dancing.

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