About Mardi Gras

DESCRIPTION:

Mardi Gras is a celebration during the five days leading up to Lent. Technically, Mardi Gras is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. The date range given covers the major festivities leading up to Lent.

European celebrations originally centered on Kings' Day (Twelfth Night or Epiphany), which falls on January 6 each year and celebrates the three kings' arrival at Jesus' birthplace, thus ending the Christmas season. The festival known as Mardi Gras (Carnaval in Brazil and Italy) combines Christianity with pagan celebrations of the impending spring, dating back more than 5,000 years.

Pope Gregory XIII made Mardi Gras a Christian holiday when in 1582, he added it to the 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, merry-making, lust, and silliness would be out of people's systems so they could focus on fasting and praying for the next 40 days. Today Mardi Gras is a five-day event, with the Tuesday prior referred to as Fat Tuesday.

Mardi Gras arrived in North America with the LeMoyne brothers, Iberville and Bienville, in the late 17th century. The brothers were sent by King Louis XIV (Versailles) to defend France's claim on the territory of Louisiana. The parade of krewes (groups of people who danced together as a unit) would come a little later.

DAWN OF A LEGEND
On Ash Wednesday of 1838, The Commercial Bulletin read:

"The European custom of celebrating the last day of the carnival by a procession of masked figures through the streets was introduced here yesterday," declared the New Orleans newspaper. It is the city's first appearance of a Mardi Gras parade, though hardly the last.

Allow me to diverge just a tad here. If you've ever been to the United States for any major celebration, you've probably noticed that booze, bawdiness, and some obnoxious behavior generally accompany any celebration—which leads us to the Mardi Gras that almost weren't.

Due to rowdiness, excessive intoxication, and general disorderly conduct, the annual Mardi Gras celebration barely escaped cancelation in 1857.

By the 20th century, the citywide-festival ran into other issues. In 1988 anti-discrimination laws required krewes to open their ranks to people of all colors and religions, 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.

Post Katrina (2005), Mardi Gras took on a whole new meaning as a reminder of the resiliency and spirit of New Orleans.

Find out more about Mardi Gras fat: http://www.nola.com/mardigras/index.ssf/2009/01/the_history_of_carnival.html#incart_river

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