Mardi Gras: The most fun you’ll have with a history lesson
(CNN) — Break out your beads and get in your last bites of king cake — Mardi Gras is nigh.Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday. It’s also called Shrove Tuesday, Carnival Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday, depending on where the celebration is taking place.No matter the name, it’s a day of revelry that includes parades, parties and gastronomic indulgence before the Christian fasting season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (February 26 in 2020). It marks the last day of the Carnival season, basically a six-week period of partying around the globe.Mardi Gras is synonymous with Carnival celebrations in New Orleans, Venice and Rio, but the day is marked in similarly festive fashion around the world in countries with large Roman Catholic populations.However, what began as a holiday rooted in religious tradition has become a cultural phenomenon, leading to parties for the sake of partying, and not necessarily in anticipation of 40 days of penance between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.Whatever your motivation, here’s everything you need to know about Mardi Gras to be conversant in the holiday’s history.
The celebration dates back to the Romans
The Butterfly King float makes its way down St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans in 2014.Sean Gardner/Getty ImagesAccording to historians, festivities resembling Mardi Gras go back thousands of years to ancient Roman festivals celebrating the harvest season. After Christianity arrived in Rome, old traditions were incorporated into the new faith and debauchery became a prelude to the Lenten season.This fusion resulted in a hedonistic period of boozing, masquerading and dancing with a heavy dose of religion.As Christianity spread throughout Europe, so did the pre-Lenten festivities. Along the way, new traditions were born and some old ones took on new incarnations. One of those Roman traditions became the sweet staple of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras known as the king cake.During Saturnalia, a winter solstice celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture, beans were baked into cakes to celebrate the harvest. Whoever found the bean was named “king of the day.” In the Middle Ages, Christianity appropriated the tradition for the festival of the Epiphany, also known as Three Kings’ Day.Related contentCarnival festivals around the world: Join the parades and parties in 2020Also known as Twelfth Night, Three Kings’ Day marks the start of the Carnival season each year on January 6. It commemorates the visit of the three kings — or wise men or magi — to the Christ child on the 12th night after his birth, for a celebration, gifts and feasting.Christians in Spain, Latin America and the United States mark the occasion with parades, gifts and family feasts. Thousands of people gather each year in Mexico City to polish off a mile-long “Rosca de Reyes,” or king cake, a staple of the holiday. Elsewhere, families prepare the crown-shaped dessert at home.The cake has a trinket or baby figurine baked inside it to symbolize Christ and is eaten throughout Carnival festivities. Just as in Roman times, the person who finds the trinket is crowned king or queen of the Carnival, a distinction that carries various duties depending on the culture, from preparing tamales for the next family party to riding on a parade float.
Shrove Tuesday is basically the same thing
Elaborate masks are another long beloved tradition of Mardi Gras.Getty Images/Getty ImagesAlong the way, Shrove Tuesday emerged as the last day of Shrovetide, the week preceding the start of Lent. The word Shrovetide is the English equivalent of Carnival, which comes from the Latin words carnem levare, meaning “to take away the flesh.” “To shrive” means to hear confessions, according to Catholic theologian Father William P. Saunders.”While this was seen as the last chance for merriment, and, unfortunately in some places, has resulted in excessive pleasure, Shrovetide was the time to cast off things of the flesh and to prepare spiritually for Lent,” he wrote in CatholicCulture.org.To prepare for Lent, Christians prepared pancakes to deplete their stock of eggs, milk, butter and fat, giving rise to Pancake Day in England. As the tradition spread through Europe, it became Mardi Gras in France, where waffles and crepes are prepared as part of a lavish feast.
Mardi Gras in the New World
Following a long tradition, revelers pack Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras day back in 2016.Jonathan Bachman/Getty ImagesEuropean colonists and slave traders brought the pre-Lenten festivities to the Americas, where they became huge celebrations throughout the Carnival season. Celebrations in Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti include musical competitions, elaborate costumes, feasts and cultural shows at various points leading up to Mardi Gras, or Carnival Tuesday.French settlers brought Mardi Gras to New Orleans and the Louisiana territory. The “Galette des Rois,” or king cake, came too, becoming a symbol of New Orleans’ brand of Mardi Gras.The first recorded Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans is believed to have held in 1837. Over time, balls, parties and parades have spread out to take place throughout Carnival season, organized by social clubs called “Krewes.”
A group of people shout for beads on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras day back in 2007. The celebration took on even more meaning for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.Chris Graythen/Getty ImagesThe tradition of “parade throws” is thought to have originated in the 1920s with the Rex Krewe, the city’s oldest social club, whose colors of purple (justice) gold, (power) and green (faith) have come to symbolize New Orleans’ Mardi Gras. After starting with necklaces, they moved onto coins called doubloons stamped with their logos, and other krewes adopted the practice.Contrary to popular belief, there is no need for nudity to attract throws. Local historians say the trend emerged in the latter 20th century as Mardi Gras attracted more college-aged revelers.While New Orleans is practically synonymous with Mardi Gras, doesn’t have a lock on the celebrations in the United States.Another Gulf Coast city about 170 miles to the east — Mobile, Alabama — also has a long history with Mardi Gras, with lots of fashionable balls and special events leading up to the big day.There can be heated debate between the two cities on which has bragging rights to claim the first celebration.Other cities, mostly along the Gulf Coast area, also have notable Mardi Gras celebrations, including Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Galveston, Texas.
Source: cnn.com
