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MYTH & HISTORY - Mardi Gras
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The New Orleans season of merriment begins on January 6, the Epiphany holiday which comes twelve days after Christmas on the day many cultures celebrate the three kings presentation of gifts to the Christ Child. The spectacular parade countdown to Fat Tuesday begins the Friday twelve days before Ash Wednesday. Here the nearly sixty parades will stir an inimitable mix of royal ritual, teasing bead and bauble giveaways, liberal libations, mask fantasy and joyful excitement until the people's collective soul rises extravagantly on New Orleans Mardi Gras Day to reaffirm its tremendous appetite for the pleasures of life.
Three centuries of Mardi Gras History
The City of New Orleans distinction as the most deeply rooted Carnival culture of the Americas is in large measure due to the French culture's affinity for masked Balls, royal ceremony and public entertainments following Sunday morning mass and the African cultures long standing attraction to festival arts with rhythm and soul. Serving as North America's main port to the Caribbean and South America, this was a chaotic syncretic culture like no other, so different it had to have its own name--Creole.
In the easy going style of a future carnival culture, the French first laid claim to the mouth of the great Mississippi river and the upriver Louisiana territory in 1682. However, it was not till Mardi Gras Day in 1699 that a camp was established called Point du Mardi Gras by French Canadian Pierre D'Iberville at a spot about 60 miles below the present crescent shaped city. In 1717, at the direction of Scottish promoter and bon vivant John Law and under the authority of the Regent, Pierre's younger brother Jean de Bienville established the town of New Orleans because of its crescent shaped strategic location on the Mississippi close to the giant Lake Pontchartrain.
The City name honored the Crown Regent and Duke of Orleans who ran the colonies for the child King Louis XV of France in the early 18th century. For the first few years French citizens invested much capital having been convinced they could get-rich-quick by the brilliant public relations skills of John Law, yet in typical fashion, relatively few French elected to immigrate. A short time later, the French investors grew impatient and wise to the fact that the promised return on their investment was long term at best. By 1720, Law had to flee France to escape his enraged investors.
Despite great colonial ambitions for their strategic port city on the gulf of Mexico, the inhabitants spent much of their time surviving with the help of the local Choctaw Indians and each other. Over time, this Creole culture would place much stock in a code of "live and let live " tolerance. Colonial New Orleans was racially diverse with an active free market economy which encouraged slaves to develop businesses which might contribute to their maintenance. This was America's first truly multi-cultural community.
The King would eventually turn the money losing colony over to his cousin King Carlos III of Spain and the much stricter Catholic moral code in 1762. Yet the colony thrived under the Spanish who wisely expanded trade opportunities, tolerated local traditions and eventually married into the prominent local families. Despite the Spanish affinity for a solemn Sunday, the Afro-Creole saw their freedoms expanded. In fact, under the Spanish, slaves could use their market earnings to purchase their freedom even if their owners objected. The Afro-Creole tradition of gathering on Sundays for music and dance at a marketplace plaza on the periphery of the French Quarter known as Congo Square was the community's most important weekly event.
The 19th Century
The century began with the great war general and ruler of France, Napoleon Bonapart regaining the rights to Louisiana from Spain but an official transfer never took place. Soon President Thomas Jefferson successfully negotiated the sale of the entire Louisiana Territories from France in 1803. At this time, the city consisted of just the 1300 structures in the French quarter and about 8,000 inhabitants over half of whom were black..
Nowhere else in North America were blacks accorded the freedom to dance and drum in a public environment of their own choosing. Authorities would eventually try to restrict the cultural practices to the most popular spot, Place des Négres or Congo Square. Correspondingly, the attention helped make the spot internationally famous and numerous accounts exist of the Sunday afternoon glory of music, motion, and fancy dress.
Following a major influx of 10,000 settlers from French Haiti and other islands of the Caribbean, Louisiana became a US state in 1812. Nevertheless, it was not until 1827 that the right to party in mask was restored. In 1823, the visiting Protestant minister Flint recorded this description of ***** Carnival.
Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau
"The great Congo-dance is performed. Everything is license and revelry. Some hundreds of negroes, male and female, follow the king of the wake....All the characters that follow him, of leading estimation, have their peculiar dress, and their own contortions. They dance, and their streamers fly, and the bells that they have hung about them tinkle. Never will you see gayer countenances, demonstrations of more forgetfulness of the past and the future, and more entire abandonment to the joyous existence of the present moment.
Throughout the first half of the 19th century, large waves of French speaking immigrants arrived. Many of them were French Canadian who had refused to renounce their Catholic faith to meet British demands and thus began a round about resettlement process from the Acadia region of Nova Scotia to the sister Bayou region of Southern Louisiana. Their strong culture had a saying "Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler" or "let the good times roll" which complemented the Creole-style yet also needed its own name, Cajun.
For some time, the only refined Carnival festivities open to the wealthy northerners were the Quadroon Balls which were revived after the departure of the Spaniards. French Creole society arranged marriages for economic and social reasons and it was at these Balls that gentlemen might select well educated mistresses whose lighter skin was supposed to mean their ancestry was less than one quarter black. The revelry and lively atmosphere of these balls was legendary and considered by many the highlight of the carnival season.
By the mid 1840's New Orleans was one of America's great cities, the fourth largest as well as owner of the country's second largest port. Not without some tension, for the growing American English speaking White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) were moving to gain political power. The prudish WASPS disapproved of the moral climate of New Orleans and of carnival in particular. That the French Creoles were notoriously snobbish and their grand affairs for the elite were exclusive debutante carnival balls must have had its effect for the new WASP clubs were just as exclusive. Control of the City Council by Anglo-Americans occurred in 1852 and is most remembered for its tightening of Afro-American freedoms including an 1858 ban on organizations (including churches) not under the control of whites.
While Mardi Gras processions in New Orleans had long been the norm, historians have chosen to cite 1857, when the Mystic Krewe of Comus, Merrie Monarchs of Mirth introduced torch-lit nighttime parades as the modern-day inception of Mardi Gras. In 1872, city-wide Mardi Gras enchantment occurred and it was the vision of royal rule of unruliness which captured the collective imagination. The new krewe of Rex introduced their King to complement the Queen first presented by the Twelfth Night Revelers the previous year.
The event introduced not only a ruler but also the official Mardi Gras flag, colors (green, gold and purple standing for faith, power, and justice) and the royal anthem. This song "If Ever I Cease to Love" was from the burlesque show "Blue Beard" and featured these inexplicable nonsense lyrics now known by all natives.
"If ever I cease to love,
May cows lay eggs and fish grow legs.
If ever I cease to love."
The show's beautiful singing sensation Lydia Thompson had inspired a visit by a royal Russian suitor, the Grand Duke Alexis Romanoff which had in turn inspired the city to set new high standards for parade pageantry. Ever since, royal revelry has been the organizing principle of this Creole Carnival culture which knows only two seasons; before Carnival and after Carnival.
Come 1862 and the Civil War the Afro-Creole spirit was quickly revived with the assistance of federal troops. However, despite some glorious unifying special events, the post-war reconstruction period was about increasing division between the races with liberty and justice for all but blacks. Eventually, Homer Adolph Plessy, the New Orleans Creole of color, challenged and won a lower court victory that these restrictions on freedom were unconstitutional. Nonetheless, on an appeal in 1896, the Supreme Court decreed the landmark legal sanction of "separate but equal" accommodations for blacks and whites. This would serve as the major stimulus for the all but complete removal of blacks from the political process throughout the entire South.
King Cake season begins on
January 6th with the twelfth night revelers decadence in French quarter
The 20th Century
About 1900, it was reported that the favorite disguise of blacks on Mardi Gras day was the Indian warrior. Musically, the Indians rhythms and melodies were West African and quite similar to certain popular Afro-Caribbean Carnival celebrations of Cuba, Haiti and Trinidad. The visually dramatic Indian costumes could be said to demonstrate solidarity and mixed blood with the oppressed native culture of their new homeland. Yet the paraders were mostly paying homage to their own ancient African identity and deep festival arts traditions. The flamboyant costumes had been inspired by the popular Wild West shows while the expressed impulses for renewal, freedom, and reversal of the established order were vintage carnival.
The unique local Mardi Gras organizations known as Krewes were fostered by these various strong cultures who tended to form mutual aid societies devoted to promote the general improvement in their member lives. While the first women carnival club event was staged in 1896 by the "Les Mysterieuses" ladies, all-women Mardi Gras parades are a rarity amongst the Krewes organized around traditional values of family, community and social status. The main event for krewes is their annual Ball which often stars members daughters as debutantes and the Queen and the older male members who help their King perform the ceremonies as Dukes. Traditional Mardi Gras Balls are strictly private containing long standing rituals whose mystery would be diluted by outsiders.
In 1909, members of a group of laborers belonging to a mutual aid society called "The Tramps" became inspired by a comedy skit about the Zulu Tribe entitled "There Never Was and Never Will Be a King Like Me and reformed as the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club." Their first Zulu King was William Story and he wore raggedy pants, a lard can crown and carried a banana stalk as his regal scepter. Black society was mocking the pompous pageantry of high society and managing to capture the spirit of carnival while delighting their audience. A survivor of many challenges to their humor in the 1960's, at present the Zulu coconut is the most prestigious prize amongst the thousands of Mardi Gras throws.
In 1992 a city ordinance was passed which demanded more open krewe membership in return for parade permits. Three of the most historic and aristocratic krewes, Comus (1857) , Momus (1882), and Proteus (1882) elected to discontinue their parades rather than open up their membership to scrutiny.
Today, three super krewes Endymion, Bacchus and Orpheus have brought democratic and super-star production values to the three major nights of Mardi Gras (Saturday, Sunday and Monday respectively). Other major parades are put on by the Hermes parade on Carnival Friday night and Rex, Zulu and Elks along St. Charles Avenue on the spectacular Mardi Gras Tuesday when all cares must be forgotten.
For drunken decadence and unusual mating rituals nothing beats the other side of Canal Street in the French Quarter and while its no place to bring the kids, you will need an extra roll of film for your camera. On Fat Tuesday the spectacular finals of the gay costume contests take place staring some of the most dynamic and engaging Drag Queens of the known world. Authorities wish the French Quarter would return to a more coy level of debauchery during the twelve days it operates at its current steamy level but no impromptu ritual has ever honored the American obsession with female breasts in such a pleading and climatic manner..
It is not possible to do all that should be done on Fat Tuesday and it is not in the spirit of Carnival to try, after all there is always next year. Be on the look-out for the raucous jazz of the many marching clubs such as the famous Pete Fountain Half-Fast Walking Club or the Jefferson City Buzzards.
This final culmination, where excitement is at a fever pitch, is your best chance to catch elusive Mardi Gras Indians whose aesthetic cultural values, dedication to their craft and the spirit of freedom pay a hearty tribute to the early multicultural roots of this great American City.
The past lives in these ancient rituals of enjoyment and enchantment and perhaps your future as well.
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Mardi Gras History 101
Carnival traditions were brought over to North America from Europe along with the first colonists. Louisiana was founded by the French and for about 45 years was ruled by Spain, then briefly by France again before Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. The 85 years of combined French and Spanish rule resulted in a strong European cast to the settlements established in this part of the country, which were carried through by their Creole inheritors.
When the United States took possession of Louisiana in 1803 and Americans began settling in, establishing their presence in New Orleans, there was, for more than 40 years, a bit of antagonism between the Creole society and the American upstarts, who controlled two separate sections of the developing city. The more puritanical Americans shunned Carnival, while the Creoles continued to celebrate it, though the celebration began slowly to die in the 1850s. The break-out of riots in 1856 did not help matters, and it seemed that Carnival traditions were about to die out altogether in the growing port city.
That same year, a group of transplanted citizens from the city of Mobile (which had been celebrating Carnival since 1705) who were members of a marching/ball society calling themselves the Cowbellions, met in the third-floor room of a pharmacy in the Vieux Carre and decided to form a carnival society of their own here in New Orleans. They also decided to do something which had been virtually unknown up to that time in New Orleans carnival --to field a tableaux display consisting of marchers in elaborate papier-mâché costumes, and three floats. They fashioned themselves as a royal court in the traditions of Old England, even down to adapting the word "crew" in Chaucerian fashion so that it came out, forever afterward, as "krewe". They chose, as their central figure representing themselves, the offspring of the Greek god Bacchus and the sorceress Circe, as filtered through the poetry of John Milton, and thus was born the Mystick Krewe of Comus.
The Civil War interrupted carnival through the duration. Comus and other marching groups, along with the carnival balls, reappeared between 1866 and 1867, but tensions varied with the occupying Union forces and the Reconstruction government. But when it was announced that Russia's Grand Duke Alexis was going to take in New Orleans as part of his tour of America and that his visit would coincide with Carnival in 1872, a group of leading businessmen and theatre designers quickly formed an organization calling themselves (which they remain, formally) the School of Design, to stage a carnival parade complete with floats, bands, and costumed marchers to honor the Grand Duke on Carnival day. The School of Design grandly proclaimed their monarch the King of the Carnival, and he became synonymous with the name of his parade: Rex. Rex paraded during the day, presenting themselves for the Grand Duke's review at noon, whereas Comus had always paraded at night. By adding a day parade, a whole new dimension had been added to the celebration.
Comus' first procession of floats in 1857 had captured the public imagination and had literally saved Mardi Gras from oblivion. Rex merely expanded this beyond any scope known, and the future pattern of the Carnival had been established. The Krewes of Proteus and Momus joined the carnival in the early 1880s, and the krewes began a gentle rivalry to produce not only the most elaborate tableaux balls, but the most beautiful and popular parades on the streets; hiring professional float and prop builders (where previously everything they presented on the streets and at the balls had been fashioned and imported from France), costumers, theatrical designers, and prop-makers. From 1890 onward, the number of parading and ball organizations has steadily grown; some existing only a short time, others having histories extending back decades and even a century and a half (in the case of Comus).
Krewes had handed parade favors to certain individuals at selected points along their routes, but Rex began the practice of tossing beads and toys to parade goers in 1920. Every organization since has followed through with the practice and adapted each new trinket, with Rex introducing doubloons in 1960. Cups began to be thrown in the 1980s, along with the increasingly popular medallion beads.
*What are the Krewes actually about? How did they start and how do they still flourish today?* The krewes are the actual carnival society organizations. The membership pay in dues to maintain the society, finance the krewe's activities including parading, organizing and staging the carnival balls, and funding the construction of their costumes and props. Some krewes only stage their own carnival balls, since parading with floats is a mighty expensive proposition, and some groups prefer the more dignified celebration characteristic of the upper strata of society. It is not unusual, for example, for debutantes to be presented at the balls, and the older krewes are composed of some of the riches and most socially and politically connected families in New Orleans. To be even a maid at the ball of Comus, for example, is to have attained one of the highest social honors imaginable in New Orleans --the equivalent of the debs' ball in most other cities.
There are some 70 separate carnival organizations in the New Orleans metro area, 10 of which, at the least, have been in continuous operation for over 100 years. In addition, there are several marching organizations, such as Pete Fountain's Half-Fast Walking Club and the Jefferson City Buzzards, and the various Mardi Gras Indian tribes, which have been an Afro-American carnival tradition going back a century and having its roots both in the local voudoun religion and the long history of amity between black and Indians extending back to the days of slavery. These people will spend their days year round --every spare moment-- sewing together some of the most elaborate and beautiful Indian costumes to be seen anywhere; outfits which rival the splendor of the court costumes at any of the carnival balls.
Every Mardi Gras, they are to be found marching through the streets of the Treme neighbourhood, and photographs don't quite do them justice for the spectacle they present on Carnival day and on any other days they field a march during the year. The deaths of any of the chiefs of these groups are celebrated with full jazz funerals. Of course, no discussion of black carnival can be complete without Zulu. In the days of Jim Crow, when blacks were shut out of all meaningful intercourse in white society, the black community proceeded to create societies and traditions of their own.
From the turn of the 20th century, there had already been the Original Illinois Club, an organization which was not only was the first major black carnival group to hold an annual ball, but also a venue to educate blacks in the etiquette of polite society. In 1916, a group of black businessmen and jazz musicians, along with working-class individuals, formed the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, which existed in part to satirize white carnival and the whole structure of the traditional organizations. Whereas Rex, in the old Lundi Gras tradition, arrived at the foot of Canal St. aboard a Coast Guard cutter to be handed the keys of the city at noon on the day before Mardi Gras, Zulu mocked Rex by having their king arrive on an oyster lugger docking at the downtown jetty of the New Basin Canal (filled in around 1956).
They decked out in parody tribal dress, mocked the blackface makeup of the minstrel show entertainers by painting their eyes and mouths white, and after a while fielded deliberately crude floats fashioned out of junk and festooned with palmetto fronds, moss, and palm leaves. Their particular carnival favor became that signature favor of the Mardi Gras season, the Zulu coconut. Eventually, the parade became much more elaborate, fielding more traditional floats, though they fashion them less around the nominal theme and more around the continued mockery of the structure of carnival societies.
The one and only time Zulu has ever had a celebrity king was when Louis Armstrong took the honor in 1949. In answer to your other questions: The present media image of Mardi Gras has much more to do with laziness on the part of the reporters covering our celebration than the actual acts, which are fewer and farther between than has been portrayed. Though there are those who seem to regard Mardi Gras as little more than a larger-scale frat party, the reality is that there are several different ways to celebrate the Carnival, all taking place simultaneously.
You can have Mardi Gras in the form that best suits your temperament and particular taste; from going to the parades to finding the various carnival parties with open invitations. You can go into the Quarter to catch the wildness there or walk through to sample everything that takes place --from the wildness of those flashing body parts for beads to seeing all the many and varied forms of costume to catching the drag-queen costume contests in the gay sections of the Quarter, to catching the marchers parading through the Bywater and lower French Quarter streets to finding carnival on Basin Street and the processions of the Indians.
The locals all have their own little traditions, most involving parties with friends which have been going in the same spots and with the same groups for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. You can even form a marching group of your own and parade on Mardi Gras day, or join one of the many sub-krewes of the amateur and satirical Krewe du Vieux parade, which usually rolls/marches twenty days after the beginning of the season on Twelfth Night (January 6th). Bourbon Street is a focus of party activity because of the number of music and strip clubs and bars to be found on the street, and their central proximity to the other clubs, pubs, and eateries to be found in the Quarter.
If you want to do more in-depth research on the topic, I can recommend the very excellent books on Mardi Gras and golden-age carnival float, invitation, and costume design by Henri Schindler, available from Pelican Books. Also Robert Tallant's Mardi Gras As It Was, and Leonard V. Huber's Mardi Gras.
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History of the King Cake -
The history of the King Cake began in 12th century France where the cake would be baked on the eve of January 6 to celebrate the visit to the Christ Child by the three Kings. A small token was hidden in the cake as a surprise for the finder.
But the origins go back a little further than that and as you would guess, it has something to do with the catholic church.
The King's Cake has its roots in pre-Christian religions of Western Europe. It was customary to choose a man to be the "sacred king" of the tribe for a year. That man would be treated like a king for the year, then he would be sacrificed, and his blood returned to the soil to ensure that the harvest would be successful. The method of choosing who would have the honor of being the sacred king was the King's Cake. A coin or bean would be placed in the cake before baking, and whoever got the slice that had the coin was the chosen one.
When Christianity extended its influence and began overshadowing the religions that came before it, many of the local customs were not outright abolished, but instead were incorporated into Christian tradition and given a new spin. This even happened to the tradition of Mardi Gras, and from what we have researched so far seems to be the case, but that's another story. Catholic priests were not predisposed to human sacrifice, so the King's Cake was converted into a celebration of the Magi, the three Kings who came to visit the Christ Child.
French settlers brought the custom to Louisiana in the 18th century where it remained associated with the Epiphany until the 19th century when it became a more elaborate Mardi Gras custom. In New Orleans, the first cake of the season was served on January 6. A small ceramic figurine of a baby was hidden in the cake. Whoever found the baby was allowed to choose a mock court and host the next King Cake party the following week (weekly cake parties were held until Mardi Gras ). In 1870, the Twelfth Night Revelers held their ball, with a large king cake as the main attraction. Instead of choosing a sacred king to be sacrificed, the Twelfth Night Revelers used the bean in the cake to choose the queen of the ball. This tradition has carried on to this day, although the Twelfth Night Revelers now use a wooden replica of a large king cake. The ladies of the court pull open little drawers in the cake's lower layer which contain the silver and gold beans. Silver means you're on the court; gold is for the queen.
The classic king cake is oval-shaped, like the pattern of a racetrack. The dough is basic coffee-cake dough, sometimes laced with cinnamon, sometimes just plain. The dough is rolled out into a long tubular shape (not unlike a thin po-boy), then shaped into an oval. The ends are twisted together to complete the shape (HINT: if you want to find the piece with the baby, look for the twist in the oval where the two ends of the dough meet. That's where the baby is usually inserted.) The baby hidden in the cake speaks to the fact that the three Kings had a difficult time finding the Christ Child and of the fine gifts they brought.
The cake is then baked, and decorated when it comes out. The classic decoration is simple granulated sugar, colored purple, green, and gold (the colors of Carnival). King cakes have gotten more and more fancy over the years, so now bakeries offer iced versions (where there's classic white coffee cake glaze on the cake), and even king cakes filled with apple, cherry, cream cheese, or other kinds of coffee-cake fillings.
Prices range from two to three dollars for a small traditional cake to close to twenty for a large filled one. A more-or-less standard slice of king cake is about three inches wide. The ceramic babies have been replaced with plastic ones, but many places now sell both pink and brown babies. Haydel's Bakery usually has a limited supply of a ceramic baby that they include with the cakes (though not baked inside). Many bakeries will honor requests for custom-made cakes that have more than one baby. I know kindergarten teachers who always orders a cake with a baby for each slice, so none of the kids is left out! That type of cake is also great for practical jokes at the office.
Who makes the best king cakes is one of those questions like who makes the best po-boy, or is Morning Call now unacceptable because they've moved out to Metairie. Remember your manners whenever you enter into discussions on religious topics. Everyone has fond memories of a place in the neighborhood, and some folks are loyal to even the Real Superstore. My personal favorites are Randazzo's (locations in Chalmette, Metairie, Terrytown and Slidell), and McKenzie's (McKenzie's is ubiquitous; if you don't know about McKenzie's, you're not from New Orleans). Yes, I do enjoy the much-maligned traditional king cake from McKenzie's, even though it only has granulated sugar as a topping. Brings back memories from when I was a kid. There are tons of other places in the metro area doing king cakes, so it's almost impossible to review them all. Look for discussions of what folks are eating on the New Orleans Internet Mailing List.
King Cake is traditionally served with chicory coffee' as Coffee' au lat'. It is best eaten warm and if you must break tradition, it can be eaten with ice cream, preferably chocolate.
King cakes are available at bakeries all over South Louisiana, but only after January 6 through Mardi Gras Day. You can order a special King cake from Haydel's year around, One of the only two bakeries that you can. The other bakery is called McKenzie's.*
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Mardi Gras Colors
Rex selected the official Mardi Gras colors in 1872. The 1892 Rex Parade theme Symbolism of Colors gave meaning to the colors: purple represents justice; green, faith; and gold, power.
It's interesting to note that our Mardi Gras colors influenced the choice of school colors for arch rivals Louisiana State University and Tulane University.
When LSU was deciding on its colors, the shops in New Orleans had stocked up on purple, green, and gold material for the Mardi Gras season. LSU decided upon purple and gold, and bought much of it.
Tulane bought much of the only remaining color -- green! (Their colors are blue and green.) Remember to wear Mardi Gras colors whenever you're not in costume!
Have a nice day. :)