New Orleans is synonymous with Mardi Gras in the US, yet over 100 U.S. cities hold Mardi Gras/Carnival celebrations every yr.
The length of Mardi Gras/Carnival varies from year to year, because Easter Sunday does not have a fixed date.
Since Easter is the most important observance, the Church decided the faithful needed some time to prepare themselves spiritually and physically, and set a day for them and let loose.
This became known as King’s Day, (symbolizing when the 3 magi/ kings visited Jesus, and the world now knew it had a savior) it is also known as Epiphany, or the Twelfth Night of Christmas.
Though Mardi Gras technically refers only to “Fat Tuesday“, when celebrations are held, before a serious time of religious observance of fasting and penitence ( regret for one’s wrongdoing or sinning)
This was called Mardi Gras is called Carnival elsewhere, from the Latin, “carne vale,” or “farewell to the flesh.” Carnival was the last time Christians could eat meat until Easter.
The following day is known as Ash Wednesday, when some have ash smeared on their forehead in the sign of the cross, as a sign of sorrow for their sins.
That’s when Lent begins for 40 days, they try to work hard on improving themselves and thinking about the teachings of to help them emphathize with Jesus’ 40 days of being tested and fasting in the desert. and it is usual for people to “give up” or abstain from something for Lent.
Though Mardi Gras is not observed nationally across the United States, a number of cities have notable Carnival celebrations.
Most trace their Mardi Gras celebrations to French, Spanish, and other colonial influences on the settlements over their history.
The origins of Mardi Gras in the southern United States can be traced to medieval Europe, passing through Rome and Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries to the French House of the Bourbons.
As Christianity moved into Northern Europe in the Middle Ages, the celebration of Mardi Gras became more formal.
Barons and other lords would plan to make new knights on Mardi Gras.
They feasted, then prepared for springtime battles by training and fasting during Lent.
From here, the traditional revelry of “Boeuf Gras,” or fatted calf, followed France to her colonies.
On March 2, 1699, French-Canadian explorer Jean Baptiste Le Moyne Sieur de Bienville arrived at a plot of ground 60 miles directly south of New Orleans, knowing it was Fat Tuesday back in France, Iberville named the spot Point du Mardi Gras and held a small gala.
Bienville also established “Fort Louis de la Louisiane” (which is now Mobile, Alabama) in 1702.
In the 18th and 19 th centuries, Carnival in New Orleans was an informal celebration held by individual families. Though, some folks would take to the streets, going from house to house, to celebrate.
In 1703, the tiny settlement of Fort Louis de la Mobile celebrated America’s very first Mardi Gras and in 1704, an established a secret society (Masque de la Mobile),was formed, similar to those that form our current Mardi Gras krewes.
In 1710, the “Boeuf Gras Society” was formed for parading because the earlier celebrations were only parties, this lasted from 1711 through 1861. Because of the Civil War it ceased.
The procession was held with a huge bull’s head pushed along on wheels by 16 men.
Later, the grand marshal, Rex was developed to parade with an actual bull, draped in white and signaling the coming Lenten meat fast.
To this day, Mobile claims to have the oldest annual Mardi Gras celebration in the United States.
Mardi Gras got going in New Orleans shortly after the city’s founding in 1718, by Bienville.
By the 1730s, Mardi Gras was celebrated openly in New Orleans
The earliest reference to Mardi Gras “Carnival” in New Orleans appears in a 1781 report to the Spanish colonial governing body.
That year, the Perseverance Benevolent & Mutual Aid Association was the first of hundreds of clubs and carnival organizations formed in New Orleans.
The Spanish, who ruled the Big Easy (nickname for New Orleans) from 1762 to 1800, apparently cracked down on certain Mardi Gras rituals (though documentation from that period is scarce).
U.S. authorities did much of the same after taking control in 1803, banning both masked balls and public disguises.
Nonetheless, they eventually accepted the festival’s existence. The first recorded Mardi Gras street parade in New Orleans took place in 1837, by which time the city had transformed from a small backwater into a major metropolis.
The first recorded instances of Mardi Gras paraders tossing souvenirs to the crowd date back to the 1840s, when revelers costumed as aristocrats threw out baubles and sugar-coated almonds.
By the late 1830s, New Orleans held street processions of maskers with carriages and horseback riders to celebrate Mardi Gras.
Dazzling gaslight torches, or “flambeaux,” lit the way for the krewe’s members and lent each event an exciting air of romance and festivity.
Even today, the nighttime parades hold an aesthetic edge over their daytime counterparts due to the drama introduced by lighted floats.
In recent years, that edge has only grown more pronounced, thanks to ever-tinier batteries powering a litany of lighted throws, from beads to balls to pretty much anything big enough to fit a krewe logo.
In 1856, six young Mobile natives formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus, invoking John Milton’s hero Comus to represent their organization.
Comus brought magic and mystery to New Orleans with dazzling floats (known as tableaux cars) and masked balls. Krewe members remained anonymous.
By holding a parade with the theme of “The Demon Actors in Milton’s Paradise Lost,” along with a lavish grand ball, Comus reversed the declining popularity of Mardi Gras and helped establish New Orleans as its clear epicenter in the United States.
Other, less savory characters preferred “trick” to “treat” and pelted onlookers with an assortment of dirt, flour, and quicklime.
In 1870, Mardi Gras’ second Krewe, the Twelfth Night Revelers, was formed.
This is also the first recorded account of Mardi Gras “throws.”
Founded in 1872, the Krewe of Rex is one of the oldest participating groups in Mardi Gras.
They formed in a New Orleans still recovering from the Civil War as a way to entice tourists to visit the city and businesses to put down roots in the community.
The city’s businessman originally organized Rex to put on a spectacle for the visiting of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.
The krewe’s official song – “If Ever I Cease to Love” – is heard throughout New Orleans in the Mardi Gras season.
It is a tune that some would describe as quirky, a song from an 1870’s musical called “Bluebeard.”
The story goes that the song was adopted because the Grand Duke Alexis had a fondness for the actress who sang the song in the musical which was playing at the time of his visit to New Orleans.
To honor the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff, the businessmen introduced Romanoff’s family colors of purple, green and gold.
They then became Carnival’s official colors during the Mardis Gras by the master of ceremonies, Rex, the King of Carnival, and his krewe.
Purple stands for justice; gold for power; and green for faith.
Every year, one member of the Rex organization is selected to be Rex, the monarch of the krewe for the year.
(He’s often called King Rex, but his correct title is just “Rex.”)
Rex is always an influential resident involved in a multiple civic causes and philanthropic pursuits. Rex’s identity is kept secret until Lundi Gras, (Monday) the day before Mardi Gras.
Traditionally, the mayor hands Rex a symbolic key to the city.
They were followed a decade later by the Krewe of Proteus.
These early societies were exclusively male and white.
So women and blacks formed their own groups, such as Les Mysterieuses and the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club.
New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras for decades before paraders rewarded their admiring throngs by hurling objects at them.
The dissemination of handouts—or “throws,” in Mardi Gras parlance—is widely believed to have derived from festival customs in Renaissance Europe, where pre-Lenten carnivals often involved projectiles (hurled about after village wide ale-and-mead binges).
Some historians theorize that the tradition has roots in a pagan post-winter ritual, during which lucky peasants who’d survived the cold months celebrated by throwing milled grain into the fields—an offering of gratitude to the deity (or deities) who had given them enough food to last.
Balconies were a way for citizens to be a part of Mardi Gras, but more recently are rented out to co operations up to 3 -5 yrs out.
Glass beads did not become a New Orleans Mardi Gras staple until the 1880s, after Anglo-American “krewes” had formed to organize the loose-knit festivities.
In 1871 , the first parade participant to use beads was a man dressed up as Santa Claus; the ornamental strands were such a hit that other krewes picked up on the ritual
Newspapers began to announce Mardi Gras events in advance, and they even printed “Carnival Edition” lithographs of parades’ fantastic float designs (after they rolled, of course – themes and floats were always carefully guarded before the procession).
At first, these reproductions were small, and details could not be clearly seen.
The following year, floats began to be constructed entirely in New Orleans instead of France, culminating with Comus‘ magnificent “The Missing Links to Darwin’s Origin of Species,” in which exotic paper-mache’ animal costumes served as the basis for Comus to mock both Darwin’s theory and local officials, including Governor Henry Warmoth.
In 1875, Governor Warmoth signed the “Mardi Gras Act,” making Fat Tuesday a legal holiday in Louisiana, which it still is.
But beginning in 1886 with Proteus’ parade “Visions of Other Worlds,” these chromolithographs could be produced in full, saturated color, doing justice to the float and costume designs of Carlotta Bonnecase, Charles Briton and B.A. Wikstrom.
Each of these designers’ work was brought to life by talented Parisian paper-mache’ artist Georges Soulie’, who for 40 years was responsible for creating all of Carnival’s floats and processional outfits.
During Mardi Gras, King’s cake also has its roots in Europe, from the Middle Ages.
The cakes are eaten as part of the celebrations following Christmas on Epiphany (Twelfth Night) after the birth of Christ, and the gifts of the Magi – the 3 kings who offered gifts to the Messiah.
Often, a token was hidden inside the cake – a coin or bean, which is said to give the person who finds it inside their bread good fortune throughout the year.
This has come to include the insertion of a plastic baby after the cake is baked, usually by tucking it inside from the bottom, where no one can see.
The cake itself is usually decorated with icings and sugars in the colors of the Mardis Gras: green, purple, and gold.
Those who received such beads in that color got luck in that particular area, and I imagine if they ate the portion of cake with those color sugars, they would gain favor in those colors as well.
By 1900, when at least 100,000 tourists a year flocked to the Crescent City for Mardi Gras, beaded throws were ubiquitous.
By 1913, beaded necklaces had become the currency of the holiday and millions of pounds of beads and other items are thrown to observers, who wear them, take them home, cherish them forever—or just leave them on the streets of the French Quarter.
More than 5 decades after cheaper imported plastic entered the scene, Mardi Gras beads are the celebration’s ubiquitous symbol, particularly after the crowds disperse and costumes are put away.
A krewe known as “Zulu” has become famous for handing out (not throwing) Mardi Gras coconuts in lieu of beads.
The practice ceased briefly in the 1980s, owing to liability concerns—no insurance company would cover Zulu, fearing that an errant coconut might dent a merrymaker’s skull.
photo below: Louis Armstrong and King Zulu 1955
Zulu leaders appealed to the Louisiana state legislature, pointing out that beads and other Mardi Gras trinkets were exempted from liability laws.
In 1987, then-Governor Edwin Edwards signed the “Coconut Bills,” adding Zulu’s heavy, oblong handouts to the list.
