Celebrated on February 28, 2006
[ Carnival begins on January 6, 2006 ]
Mardi Gras History
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.
