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Mardi Gras Day can occur any day
between February 3 and March 9. It is always scheduled exactly
47 days preceding Easter (the 40 days of Lent, plus seven
Sundays).
Mardi Gras 2006 is on February
28, 2006.
The Gulf Coast Carnival Association
will have one large parade in Biloxi at 2:00 on Mardi Gras
Day.
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Mardi Gras is a time of decadent revelry...
A time
for gaudy, sparkling costumes; a time for masked kings and
queens; balls, parades, floats, bands, beads, trinkets, and
doubloons. It's a time when carnival organizations to select
kings and queens to preside over their court, which consists
of dukes and maids.
The royalty wear elaborate costumes and crowns
and pull long trains like wedding trains; they wave their
scepter and reign proudly during the Mardi Gras season.
It's a throw-back to times of monarchy, when a king reigned
supreme. Royalty and their court and krew members have tableaus
which tell a story with a theme, stage elaborate balls, attend
receptions, sit on their royal thrones, and ride in parades
on elaborate floats.
It's a decadent time of partying, of drinking
too much and eating too much. It is a time in which being
wild is not only the norm; it is expected. It's a time to
get caught up in the magic!
Each year the celebration grows, gaining more
krewes, more balls, more parades, and more publicity and larger
crowds lining the streets to view the revelry. Mardi Gras
is no longer limited to the New Orleans and Gulf Coast States
that previously held a monopoly on it. Many large inland cities
now celebrate Mardi Gras.
Laissez
le bon temps rouler!
(Let the good times roll!)
Doubloon
designed by Cheryl
Boswell
The Parades...
Crowds
gather by the thousands, often camping overnight in campers
parked along the streets to get the best sites along the parade
routes. Spectators dress in colorful costumes, wear crazy
hats, and deck themselves in beads and clothing of Mardi Gras
colors as they await the floats. They often take a picnic
or a barbecue grill and a cooler full of their favorite libations
and make a day of fun. Music blares from boom boxes as people
dance in the streets. Groups walk up and down the streets
before the parade rolls, greeting friends and strangers. Food
and drink booths are everywhere, with the drink being heavy
on the alcohol. Venders walk along the crowds "hawking" all
sorts of wares: trinkets, noise-makers, silly string and cotton
candy. Young and old alike reach a frenzied state as the time
nears for the first royalty float to roll.
It has begun!
"Throw me something, Mister"
Is shouted
by everyone in the crowd, hoping to catch the largest beads,
the most colorful doubloons, the best candy, or even a moon
pie!
Undies, anyone???
How did Mardi Gras begin?
The season
of Mardi Gras is a Christian holiday rooted in ancient spring
fertility festivals. The words "Mardi Gras" are French for
"Fat Tuesday". It is symbolic for peoples' last chance to
over-indulge on Fat (or Shrove) Tuesday, the day before the
forty days of Lent, which for Christians, and especially Catholics,
is a time for solemnity before the Easter resurrection of
Jesus. However, Mardi Gras is a secular holiday, more worldly
than spiritual. The day of Mardi Gras Day has become a giant
street party for the masses.
The History of Mardi Gras
It most
likely began with a 3,500-year old Greek spring fertility
festival marked by animal sacrifices, masking, overindulgence,
and too much of a good time. Men smeared blood all over themselves
and lashed women with whips made from the sacrificed animals,
believing that the lash on a woman's bare skin was a guarantee
of fertility. Once it got into Roman hands, it was renamed
"Lupercalia" in honor of Lupercus, their pastoral god. This
festival became an excuse for orgies in which face masks furnished
the secrecy needed for various misdeeds, including murder.
Citizens were given license to do anything they wanted under
the guise of face masks, and the sexes cross dressed. Streets
were littered with the corpses of criminals and pepper, whereas
now the streets are littered with broken beads, beer cans
and trash.
Under Christianity, Lupercalia was incorporated
into church celebrations because the pagan refused to set
aside their pagan ways. But it took five centuries for the
Roman Catholic Church to tame it into a celebration just for
fun.
To make the spring rites acceptable, church
leaders revived the original Greek motive of atonement with
acceptable feasting before the Lenten season. The carnival
in its less raucous form spread across Europe, and Christianized
Roman and Greek leaders had medals struck and dispensed them
along the roadside while masked revelers paraded and pelted
one another with confetti and Candy. By the time of the Middle
Ages, Florence and Venice had parades with boats. It eventually
spread to Europe.
The carnival came to the New World from the
French. One thousand years after the papal change of the holiday
from pagan to Christian, Pierre LeMoyne
D'Iberville explored the Gulf Coast and remarked in his 1699
journal, "March 3rd Mardy Gras Day."
d' Iberville was exploring the mouth of the Mississippi River
and proclaimed a bayou that he discovered that day to be Mardi
Gras Bayou. On that day, tradition dictates, the explorers
opened a bottle of wine and toasted their king, King Louis
XIV.
When is Mardi Gras???
It can occur on any Tuesday from February 3
through March 9. It is a fluctuating date established by the
Catholic Church. The carnival season begins on Epiphany, January
6, the day the three kings visited Jesus, and lasts through
Mardi Gras, the day before Lent (Ash Wednesday). It changes
as does Easter, but is generally sometime in February. People
confuse "Carnival Season" with Mardi Gras. Carnival is the
entire time period from January 6 until midnight on Fat Tuesday.
Mardi Gras is the actual day of Fat Tuesday. Carnival can
last less or more than thirty days, depending on when Easter
occurs. This is all based on the old Gregorian calendar made
my Pope Gregory.
Mardi Gras Colors
The three Mardi Gras
colors first appeared in 1872 in New Orleans on a carnival
flag for the Krew of Rex. It was especially designed for
the visiting Grand Duke of Russia who had traveled to New
Orleans just for the Carnival. The colors remained as his
legacy. Later, Rex (who is the largest and most famous Krew
there) assigned a meaning to each color:
Purple: Justice
Green: Faith
Gold: Power
The King Cake
All
over the world, people gather for festive twelfth night celebrations.
In European
countries, the coming of the wise men bearing gifts to the
Christ Child is celebrated twelve days after Christmas. This
celebration is called Ephipany, Little Christmas,
or the Twelfth Night. One of the most popular customs in this celebration
of giving gifts is the baking of a special cake in honor of
the three kings -- a King's Cake.
A King Cake is a sweet, yeast pastry that is oval-shaped (like
a king's crown) and decorated with icing and sugars colored
purple, yellow and green.
In Europe,
they hide a bean inside the cake and the person receiving
it must portray one of the kings. From Latin countries, we
get the custom of putting a tiny plastic baby inside, representing
the Christ Child.
It was
originally served only on January 6th (Twelfth Night), but
now, and here, it is celebrated starting on the twelfth night
after Christmas and continues through Fat Tuesday, the day
before Ash Wednesday, which is throughout the entire carnival
season.
It is
said that the lucky person who gets the baby has a year of
good fortune awaiting. The recipient then continues the festivities
by having another party or bringing another cake. King cake
parties begin on the twelfth day after Christmas and continue
until Fat Tuesday, the night before Lent begins. In the U.S.,
cakes are brought to offices, school, meetings and parties,
and the person finding the baby in their piece must bring
a king cake the next day.
The first
cakes were a simple ring of dough with little decoration.
The New Orleans-style cake is brightly decorated with Mardi
Gras colored sugars and pieces of fruit with cinnamon inside.
Recently the trend has been to have a variety of cream cheese
or fruit fillings.
Click
here for a recipe for King Cake.
Personal Note: If you don't
live close enough to the French and Cajun country where Mardi
Gras is celebrated to buy a King Cake, and you don't want
to make one, and you would like to try one, you might like
to order from one of these places.
To:
Mardi Gras Customs and Traditions
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Counter re-started 3/11/03
Updated 1/22/06
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All sounds and graphics not credited
to others (or created by me) are considered to be in "public
domain". If you see something that is not in public domain
that you created, please let me know and I will give you
credit or remove it.
Thanks.
Much of my information about Mardi Gras was obtained
from "The Sun Herald" newspaper, with articles
written by various columnists. Each year they have an excellent
Mardi Gras supplement. To the best of my knowledge, the
information is correct, but I can't guarantee it.
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