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CajunRick
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| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5024 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Wed Dec 26th, 2007 10:19 pm |
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History of Mardi Gras in New Orleans
By Becky Retz
The Times-Picayune
Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is the final day of Carnival, which begins on the Feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6.
Also known as Kings' Day or Twelfth Night, Jan. 6 celebrates the arrival of the three kings at Jesus' birthplace, thus ending the Christmas season. And in New Orleans, simultaneously starting Carnival. This festival of fun finds its roots in various pagan celebrations of spring, dating back 5,000 years.
Pope makes it official
But it was Pope Gregory XIII who made it a Christian holiday when, in 1582, he put it on his Gregorian calendar (the 12-month one we still use today).
He placed Mardi Gras on the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. That way, all the debauchery would be finished when it came time to fast and pray.
Much of the first part of the Carnival season is invitation-only coronation balls and supper dances hosted by private clubs known as krewes.
The public portion comes to life a couple of weeks before Mardi Gras when the krewes hit the streets, staging more than 70 parades in metropolitan New Orleans.
Mardi Gras arrived in North America with the LeMoyne brothers, Iberville and Bienville, in the late 17th century, when King Louis XIV sent the pair to defend France's claim on the territory of Louisiana.
America's first Mardi Gras
The explorers eventually found the mouth of the Mississippi River on March 3, 1699, Mardi Gras of that year.
They made camp a few miles upriver, named the spot Point d'Mardi Gras and partook in a spontaneous party. This is often referred to as North America's first Mardi Gras.
A couple of decades later, Bienville founded New Orleans and soon Carnival celebrations were an annual event highlighted by lavish balls and masked spectacles. Some were small, private parties with select guest lists, while others were raucous, public affairs.
Collectively, they reflected such a propensity for frolic in the local citizenry that historian Robert Tallant wrote in his book "Mardi Gras" that "natives would step over a corpse on the way to a ball or the opera and think nothing of it."
Parades officially began in 1838.
On Ash Wednesday of that year, The Commercial Bulletin read: "The European custom of celebrating the last day of the Carnival by a procession of masqued figures through the streets was introduced here yesterday."
Over the next 20 years, Carnival became an increasingly rowdy event defined by drunkenness and violence. Eventually, churches and even the press began to call for its demise.
In 1857, Mardi Gras found itself on the verge of death.
The birth of the krewe
Then along came Comus, which actually started 27 years earlier in the wee hours of Jan. 1, 1830 when a group of young men walking home after a New Year's Eve celebration in Mobile, Ala., passed a store featuring an outdoor display of rakes, hoes and cowbells. Making the kind of decision inebriated young men are apt to, they picked up the supplies and headed to the mayor's house where they caused a stir. An obviously patient man, the mayor sobered them up and, according to historian Buddy Stall, made the motley krewe's leader an offer.
"Next year," hizzoner suggested, "why not organize yourselves and let everybody have fun?"
Led by Michael Kraft, the group called themselves the Cowbellion de Rakin Society, paraded the following New Year's Eve, and was so successful that the procession became an annual event.
Now, jump ahead to 1857 when New Orleans city leaders were on the verge of canceling Mardi Gras for good. Six Cowbellions now living in the Big Easy proposed forming a new private club to present a parade based on a theme, with floats, costumed riders and flambeaux (torch carriers who lit the way) an orderly alternative to the chaos that Carnival had become. They chose the name Comus after the Greek god of revelry and coined the "krewe" appellation.
City leaders agreed and Comus was credited with saving Mardi Gras.
Then came the Revelers
It wasn't until after the Civil War that the second Carnival krewe made its debut in 1870. The new group chose Jan. 6 to present their parade and ball, naming themselves the Twelfth Night Revelers
Although they no longer parade, the Revelers' ball (along with the Kings' Day streetcar ride of the Phunny Phorty Phellows) marks the official start of the season.
During the Revelers' first fete, an innovation was brought to Mardi Gras -- a queen. Well, almost. After their tableau was presented, court fools carried out a giant king cake, the traditional pastry of the season, which contained a golden bean. The plan was that pieces of cake would be presented to a group of young ladies and the one who found the bean would be crowned Carnival's first queen. However, it seems the fools were drunk and instead of presenting the cake, they either dropped it on or threw it at the women. When the flour cleared, none of the appalled females would admit to having the bean. The first Carnival queen wasn't, until the next year.
By 1872, new troubles were brewing in the city. Post-war carpetbaggery had reached its zenith and rumblings of revolt against the city government could be heard. As Carnival approached, fears of masked reprisals surfaced.
Rex and the Grand Duke
Then came the diversion city leaders needed. News arrived that Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff Alexandrovitch, brother of the heir apparent to the throne of Russia, had accepted the city's invitation to attend Mardi Gras.
A plan was hatched. A new krewe of prominent citizens from both the government and its opposition would be formed and a king of all Carnival would be chosen. The group would call itself the School of Design and its ruler was to be Rex (Latin for king).
What no one knew was that the duke had accepted because his visit would coincide with the New Orleans opening of singer Lydia Thompson's touring musical, in which she performed a nonsensical ballad called "If Ever I Cease to Love." (Supposedly, she had also sung the number privately for the duke during a Big Apple rendezvous.)
When news of Thompson and the duke finally hit the grapevine, public interest in the visit grew. Mardi Gras morning found the duke sitting in the official reviewing stand as Rex atop a bay charger led 10,000 maskers in a line more than a mile long.
Among them were a number of bands, all of which broke into "If Ever I Cease to Love" as they passed the prince. The romance was ill-fated, but after 134 years, Rex remains King of Carnival and "If Ever I Cease to Love" is still the official song of the season.
Zulu makes merry
The oldest parading African-American krewe is the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, which first took to the streets in 1909. Not taking themselves as seriously as the staunch white krewes, the group dressed its king, William Story, in a sack and a crown fashioned from a lard can. A banana stalk was his scepter. Over the years, Zulu has become a perennial favorite and the krewe's gilded coconuts (painted gold and decorated with glitter) are one of the season's most prized throws.
By the 1950s, truck parades, composed of floats built atop flatbed trucks usually by families, had become well established. The late '60s saw the advent of the "superkrewes" Endymion and Bacchus, which broke with tradition by offering open memberships, larger floats and celebrity kings.
Carnival faced new challenges in the latter half of the 20th century. A 1979 police strike caused parades to be canceled in the city, but a number of them moved to the suburbs.
The City Council's anti-discrimination ordinance of 1988 called for krewes to open their ranks or get off public streets. In response, three of the four oldest krewes Comus (1857), Momus (1873) and Proteus (1882) took their floats and went home.
Rex remained and the other slots were filled. Proteus even returned in 2000 and the following year became the first krewe to parade in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
In 2002, Mardi Gras was celebrated under the shadow of the 9/11 terror attacks. Because Super Bowl that year was delayed, the two weekends of Mardi Gras parades were split, with a weekend of parades, then Super Bowl weekend in New Orleans, and then the final long weekend of Mardi Gras. The celebrations took place with troops in the streets and warplanes circling overhead.
History of Mardi Gras since 2002:
After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Mardi Gras 2006 was in question. It can't really be canceled because it's not a public festival, but a collection of private events. The only real public involvement is the issuing of parade permits and police protection along the routes. Everything else is privately financed. But due to massive losses, many krewes were unable to parade due to their members' financial situations. (It costs a rider $1000 to $10,000 a year to ride, and krewe kings can spend $25,000 or more.)
The City of New Orleans, financially strapped and with depleted police and sanitation crews, decided it could handle an eight-day celebration spread over two weekends. Many krewes could not follow their traditional routes because of the devastation, some canceled, and others moved temporarily to the suburbs. But Mardi Gras became the turning point in the recovery. Families that had been spread throughout the country by the diaspora held reunions, and many came home to find friends and family they had not heard from since the storm and had feared dead. Churches reopened to make room for the reunited families, and the celebration became more significant than the typical Mardi Gras. If New Orleans could put on Fat Tuesday, it could recover.
Tourists stayed away, so it wasn't as big a financial boon as usual, but instead the family atmosphere that has always been an essential part of Carnival returned to center stage. We had a fabulous, family oriented celebration, and even locals were able to party on Bourbon Street, which normally only has room for die-hards, tourists, and the news media.
2006 will see the Mardi Gras parades expanded to 13 days, and additional parade routes are open. The police force is still depleted and the city is still financially strapped, so things won't be quite back to normal, but it will be an excellent year for tourists to come to New Orleans with lower prices, smaller crowds, and a friendlier, more traditional atmosphere.
It all begins tonight, the Feast of the Epiphany, the Twelfth Night of Christmas, with the cutting of the first King Cake, the first Carnival Ball of the Twelfth Night Revelers, and the riding of the streetcar by the Phunny Phorty Phellows (on an abbreviated route ... the streetcars are not yet fully operational).
In 2008, Mardi Gras will almost return to normal.
The street cars once again roll on St. Charles Street from Canal Street to River Bend (although they still don't make it all the way to Carrolton and Carondolet). All of the krewes and parade routes are expected to be back in operation, and the Mardi Gras Indians will once again be at full strength (except for those who lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina). This year, New Orleans hosted the New Orleans Bowl on December 21st, which will be followed by the Sugar Bowl on January 1st, Twelfth Night on January 6th (with the ride of the Phunny Phorty Phellows and the ball of the Twelfth Night Revelers), and BCS National Championship on January 7th, Carnival parades begin on January 15th, but the season gets serious on January 25th.
Mardi Gras is early this year. There will be hundreds of parades in towns from Houston to Pensacola, north to Shreveport and Jackson, with the Rex parade closing the season on Fat Tuesday, February 5th. Mardi Gras ends at midnight with police cars and officers on horseback announcing that Lent has begun, and the revelers will head to St. Louis Cathedral for morning mass and distribution of ashes.
And then New Orleans will gear up for the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday, February 17th, followed by Holy Week, Vieux Carre Festival, Jazzfest, and the Arena Bowl.
In 2008, New Orleans will signal the world that the Big Easy has risen from the ashes.
If you'd like to learn more about Mardi Gras, you can visit the New Orleans Times-Picayune's Mardi Gras web site.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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BodRod
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Apple Valley, California USA |
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 10:09 pm |
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| I ordered a Traditional King Cake from Haydel's for this year's Mardi Gras festivities.
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Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
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tedjenczewski
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| Joined: | Thu May 10th, 2007 |
| Location: | Richmond, Virginia USA |
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| First Name: | Ted | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Catholic, Presbyterian, Catholic |
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 11:01 pm |
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| I have always considered mardi gras as an exercise in debauchery, and another reason for protestants to condemn the catholic church. Mardi gras provides them evidence of the pagan influence in the church which they say has been there at least since the time of Constantine.
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"...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth." 1Tim 3, 15
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BodRod
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| Joined: | Mon Oct 2nd, 2006 |
| Location: | Apple Valley, California USA |
| Posts: | 723 |
| First Name: | Cliff | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Raised an SDA, then Generic Christian, finally at home with ... |
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Posted: Sun Dec 30th, 2007 11:18 pm |
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| I think people will believe what they want to believe. If they are looking for something about which to complain, they will find it AND if they are looking for something to appreciate or enjoy, they will find that.
____________________
Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro.
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5024 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Mon Dec 31st, 2007 01:25 am |
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tedjenczewski wrote: I have always considered mardi gras as an exercise in debauchery, and another reason for protestants to condemn the catholic church.
Do not judge Mardi Gras by what you see happening on television. They always set their cameras on Bourbon Street. Mardi Gras is a family and cultural celebration that stretches from Houston to Pensacola; Bourbon Street is about five blocks long, and most of the locals don't go anywhere near the place during Carnival (or at most other times, for that matter).
Carnival is a culture built around faith and family. It begins with the Feast of the Kings (Twelfth Night, the Epiphany) and ends when Lent begins. It is rooted in the community's need and desire to share those foods which could not be preserved through the Great Fast (Lent). The parades represent the greatest free show on earth, financed by the riders with no taxpayer expense (except police and sanitation).
Families gather along St. Charles Street early in the morning with their barbeque pits and port-o-potties and spend the day visiting with each other and with friends they haven't seen since the previous year. Since Katrina, people have been coming home to find themselves greeted joyfully by friends who didn't know whether they were dead or alive. And everyone enjoys the day together regardless of race, creed, gender, or national origin. On Mardi Gras day, the parades start at 8 a.m. and run until well after dark, with many of the floats hand-built by clubs, friends, and even neighbors who pay a small fee to put their float in the truck parades.
And the carnival krewes make a positive contribution to the community all year long, with food programs for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, contributions to Children's Hospital, etc. Different krewes have different charities they support.
To condemn Mardi Gras based on the few who abuse it would be like condemning sports because some people fight, or swimming because of spring break, or New York because of the 9/11 attacks. And those who do condemn the entire celebration have never experienced the true spirit of the Carnival season.
What proof do I have? The fact that Protestant churches in south Louisiana do not condemn Mardi Gras; most of them participate willingly. Many even place floats in the parades themselves. Their condemnations are aimed at the abuses, as they should be.
____________________
Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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