The Universal Mardi Gras Celebration: A History of Revelry
The celebration known as Carnival or Mardi Gras boasts a history that stretches back to ancient times. While its exact origins are difficult to pinpoint, the festival incorporates elements of ancient rites associated with the winter solstice, as well as religious and cultural traditions from around the world. Today, Mardi Gras is celebrated in many countries, including the United States, where it has become synonymous with New Orleans.
Ancient Roots and Pagan Influences
Traces of the celebration can be found in ancient rites tied to the observance of the winter solstice. The Roman festival of Saturnalia, held in December, commemorated the death and rebirth of nature in honor of Saturn, the god of agriculture and civilization. This festival was presided over by a mock king chosen by chance, a practice related to the mythology surrounding Saturn. During Saturnalia, all were given equal rights, and even a slave could rule.
The ecstatic worship of Dionysus, or Bacchus as he was known to the Romans, also played a fundamental role in Carnival's development. Dionysus, the god of viniculture, was both beneficent and potentially dangerous, as wine consumed to excess could lead to irrationality or madness. Ancient Dionysian rites involved religious rituals in which devotees danced themselves into a trance, believing the god possessed them. This aspect of stepping outside oneself and reveling in collective rapture is apropos of Carnival. Dionysus was a democratic, egalitarian, and accessible god whose cult was universal, allowing anyone to join in the festivities. He had a special relationship with humans, offering them communion with the divine and a direct apprehension of immortality.
Dionysus's unique origin story as the product of a sexual union between Zeus and a mortal named Semele further distinguishes him. Zeus gestated the Dionysus’ embryo in his own thigh after Semele was incinerated by Zeus's full glory, making Dionysus a god. Dionysus’s elder half-brother, Apollo, was associated with light, order, reason, prophesy, healing, music, and the arts.
The Christian Adaptation
Early Christianity was itself an ecstatic religion, with enraptured dancing, carnivalesque behavior, and charismatic forms of worship. Church leaders spent much of the Middle Ages purging ecstatic and unruly behavior. Eventually, an accommodation emerged, allowing Christians to celebrate with abandon on holy days as long as the revels didn't invade Church property.
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The etymology of "carnival" suggests a dynamic in which pagan customs were subsumed into Judeo-Christian tradition. The Latin word "carnelevare," from which "carnival" is derived, means "to lift up" or relieve from "flesh" or "meat," possibly referring to the beginning of the Lenten season of atonement and abstinence. The Church rationalized Carnival as an expression of the occasional need for carefree folly. Mardi Gras became an "official" Christian holiday in 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Gregorian calendar.
In medieval times, the feast of the Epiphany (January 6), also known as Kings’ Day or Twelfth Night, evolved into a major celebration alongside Carnival. Monarchs would don their finest regalia, and children received presents. The holiday became a glittering finale to a 12-day Christmas cycle, with elaborate entertainments featuring conjurers, acrobats, jugglers, harlequins, and the Lord of Misrule, who orchestrated the festivities. Jesters in Carnival represent the license to poke fun, just as jesters in medieval courts could speak truth to power.
The Twelfth Night customs that spread throughout Europe included the choice of a mock king, selected by chance through drawing lots or finding a bean or coin in a cake. The person who found the hidden item was the lucky king for the night, sometimes choosing his own queen. This "luck-of-the-draw" ritual, dating back to Saturnalia, imbued Twelfth Night with royal associations. Christians transformed it into a symbolic reenactment of Epiphany.
Over time, Carnival became established as the season of merriment that begins on Twelfth Night and climaxes on Mardi Gras. Occurring on any Tuesday from February 3 through March 9, Mardi Gras is tied to Easter, which falls on the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the Spring Equinox. While the festivities were sanctioned by the Church to some degree, the uplifting religious experience was supposed to be found within the Church-controlled rites of mass and procession, not within the drinking and dancing.
A 1559 painting contrasts somber Lenten penance with Carnival feasting, masking, games, and foolery. In the foreground, a mock jousting contest takes place between figures representing Carnival and Lent. Carnival, personified by a jolly fat man, sits astride a wine barrel holding a cooking skewer threaded with a pig’s head, sausages, and a chicken. Lent, dour, pale, and gaunt, sits on a church chair and advances on a trolley drawn by a friar and a nun.
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The Evolution of Carnival in Europe
The "secularization of pleasure" may account for the unbridled, chaotic nature of pre-modern Carnivals in Europe, in which traditional conventions were suspended and the common folk ran wild in the streets, indulging in mass inebriation, insubordination, and mockery at the expense of the ruling elites. However, beginning in the 16th century, the upper classes began to distance themselves from the traditional free-for-alls. Carnival began to take on a more menacing, political aspect as an occasion for protest and rebellion, especially in France.
The upper classes became increasingly concerned with etiquette, polite conversation, and "cultured" entertainment such as opera, ballet, and classical music. The Protestant Reformation, Age of Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, along with the disciplinary demands of military preparedness, took their toll on communal pleasures such as Carnival and Twelfth Night celebrations. The revels were seen as a distraction from work and a waste of resources, if not outright dangerous.
Protestantism, especially in its ascetic, Calvinist form, played a major role in convincing people that unremitting, disciplined labor was good for their souls and that festivities were sinful. The Catholic south of Europe held on to its festivities more tightly than the north, though these were often reduced to processions of holy images and relics. Everywhere, the general drift led away from the medieval tradition of carnival.
Mardi Gras in the New World
Across the oceans, the colonies of the New World, especially Latin-Catholic outposts on the Gulf Coast, provided fertile ground for regenerating the old rituals of collective joy. On the evening of March 2, 1699, French-Canadian explorer Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville, leading an expedition on behalf of the French crown, dropped anchor at the mouth of the Mississippi River. The next day happened to be Mardi Gras. Iberville’s expedition went on to establish settlements at Biloxi Bay (Mississippi) and Fort Louis de la Louisiane (Alabama), located on the Mobile River.
That Carnival would sink deep roots in New Orleans speaks to the essential character of the city. "America, which makes a fetish of reason, righteousness and modernism, is among the most Apollonian of nations," the art critic D. Eric Bookhardt once observed. In 1718, Iberville’s brother, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur d’Bienville, established New Orleans as a permanent settlement. The French Crown commissioned a private enterprise, the Company of the Indies, to develop the colony.
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In 2004, the Historic New Orleans Collection acquired Caillot’s lengthy written chronicle of his activities in New Orleans and his travels to and from the colony. According to an article in the 2011 edition of Arthur Hardy’s Mardi Gras Guide, Calliot’s father was a footman in the household of the Dauphin, the son of King Louis XIV. He writes of being “quite far along in the Carnival season [of 1730], without having had the least bit of fun or entertainment, which made me miss France a great deal.” Arriving in his office on the day before Mardi Gras to find his colleagues “bored to death,” he proposed a Mardi Gras masking adventure to Bayou St. John. Cross-dressing as “a shepherdess, all in white,” with “a corset of white bazin, a muslin skirt, a large pannier” and “beauty marks on my face and even on my breasts, which I had plumped up,” Caillot fancied himself “the most coquettishly” turned out member of the group.
Folklore has it that after he became governor of Louisiana in 1743, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, assisted by a dancing master called Bebe, established society balls and banquets that would evolve into the upper-class Carnival soirees of later generations. The elements of court behavior and presentation that would become features of these balls had roots in Europe’s ancien régime. Louisiana-born descendents of French and Spanish colonizers came to see themselves as a New World aristocracy, aloof from mainstream Anglo-American culture.
In colonial times, the focal point of Afro-Caribbean culture was the Place des Negres, later renamed Congo Square. Until it was suppressed around 1835, the public market and venue for communal drum-and-dance convocations provided continuity for African forms of festive merriment. These Creoles, as they took to calling themselves, had a soft spot for Twelfth Night and the old tradition of having the finder of a bean or trinket concealed inside a cake rule over the revels. In the colonial era, New Orleans Creoles cut cake to divine royalty during a season of balls, called les bals des Rois (the balls of kings), that began on Twelfth Night and ended on Mardi Gras.
"New Orleans simply couldn’t resist the lure of a masked ball at any time or for any reason," writes Henry A. Kmen in Music in New Orleans: The Formative Years, 1791 - 1841. In colonial times, a remarkable ethnic diversity made New Orleans the New World’s most exotic and intriguing society but also bred fears and hostilities. In 1781, a report to the Spanish colonial governing body, the Cabildo, raised concerns about people of color masking and mingling while passing through the streets in search of dance halls.
Not long after the United States purchased Louisiana in 1803, masking once again had the authorities on edge. "On Jan. 21, 1806," writes Kmen, "the city council, acknowledging that masks and disguises ‘were the means of grand disorders among us,’ proclaimed that henceforth anyone wearing a mask on the street was to be arrested, unmasked, and fined ten dollars. In 1827, thanks largely to petitioning by prominent Creoles, who saw themselves as conservators of the cultural heritage of Old Europe the City Council lifted the ban on masking from January 1 through Mardi Gras. As street masking burgeoned, bands of musicians and ornamented carriages began joining in the processions.
Also in the early decades of the 19th century, the Afrocentric performance culture of Congo Square, an area where slaves were permitted to assemble on Sundays, began to resonate in ways that would later influence the development of jazz as well as second line and Mardi Gras Indian traditions. Simultaneously strange and alluring, the goings-on became something of a tourist attraction.
The Development of Krewes and Parades
Carnival historians often point to the Cowbellion de Rakin Society as the key precursor of the New Orleans Mardi Gras krewe system. On a rainy Christmas Eve night in 1831, in Mobile, Alabama, a cotton broker named Michael Krafft apparently found himself in the doorway of a hardware store, quite likely intoxicated. He gathered up …
The first Mardi Gras parade held in New Orleans is recorded to have taken place in 1833 with Bernard de Marigny funding the first organized parade, tableau, and ball. The tradition in New Orleans expanded to the point that it became synonymous with the city in popular perception, and embraced by residents of New Orleans beyond those of French or Catholic heritage. Festivities formally began in 1853 when a group of Protestant Anglo-Americans, some members of Mobile Mystic Societies, formed the first "old-line" krewe, The Mistick Krewe of Comus, based on Bernard de Marigny's 1833 parade of paper-mached wagons, a formal tableau vivant and presentation of debutants, followed by a formal ball.
The Twelfth Night Revelers were formed in 1870, again with ties to Mobile, but no longer stage a parade, just tableau and ball. The Knights of Momus and Rex came about in 1872, with the last of the old-line krewes the Krewe of Proteus being formed 10 years later. Galveston's first recorded Mardi Gras celebration, in 1867, included a masked ball at Turner Hall and a theatrical performance from Shakespeare's "King Henry IV" featuring Alvan Reed as Falstaff. The first year that Mardi Gras was celebrated on a grand scale in Galveston was 1871 with the emergence of two rival Mardi Gras societies, or "Krewes" called the Knights of Momus and the Knights of Myth, both of which devised night parades, masked balls, exquisite costumes and elaborate invitations. The Knights of Momus, led by some prominent Galvestonians, decorated horse-drawn wagons for a torch lit night parade.
St. Louis, Missouri, founded in 1764 by French fur traders, claims to host the second largest Mardi Gras celebration in the United States. The celebration is held in the historic French neighborhood, Soulard, and attracts hundreds of thousands of people from around the country. Although founded in the 1760s, the St. Louis Mardi Gras festivities only date to the 1980s. The city's celebration begins with "12th night", held on Epiphany, and ends on Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras, as a celebration of life before the more-somber occasion of Ash Wednesday, nearly always involves the use of masks and costumes by its participants, and the most popular celebratory colors are purple, green, and gold.
Universal Studios and the Modern Celebration
Universal Orlando Resort has been hosting its own version of Mardi Gras since 1995, aiming to bring guests into the party with day and night entertainment included in the price of admission. The event began with a collaboration between Universal and Blaine Kern, the founder of Kern Studios, a leading parade designer and builder for Mardi Gras floats in New Orleans. The relationship with the Kern family has lasted into present-day, with Blaine’s son Barry now leading Kern Studios.
The nightly Universal Mardi Gras parade is a signature element of the event, featuring the Krewe of Dionysus, a family-friendly Mardi Gras Krewe home to Universal. Signature floats include the Royalty float, the Jester float, and King Gator, a staple in the parade since 1998. The development of these floats happens closer to the source than you may think, with a core Entertainment team traveling to New Orleans to sort through props at Kern Studios by hand.
During the day, guests can enjoy authentic elements of the historic New Orleans event, such as street performers like stilt walkers and dancers. The French Quarter is filled with music, and the Mardi Gras Concert series transforms the Universal Music Plaza with musical performances. Universal Mardi Gras merchandise has a flair of its own, showing vibrant colors, patterns, and glitter, with King Gator often featured.
Universal’s Mardi Gras celebration continues to evolve, with the team planning to keep it authentic while leaving room for the right opportunities. The international food celebration is a daytime experience where guests can taste flavors from carnival and other celebrations around the world.
Traditions and Symbolism
Mardi Gras, as a celebration of life before the more-somber occasion of Ash Wednesday, nearly always involves the use of masks and costumes by its participants, and the most popular celebratory colors are purple, green, and gold. Purple stands for justice, gold for power, and green for faith.
A signature staple of Mardi Gras is the king cake, a cross between a cinnamon roll and a coffee cake. The cake is a ring-shaped pastry typically covered in white icing and decorated with stripes of yellow, purple, and green edible glitter, whole pecans, and candied cherries. A tiny plastic baby is baked inside the cake, and whoever discovers the baby inside their slice is supposedly brought good luck. The king cake may be derived from the Biblical Christmas story of the three kings, with the baby representing infant Jesus, or from the pagan winter solstice celebration of Saturn, where beans were baked into cakes to celebrate the harvest.
A Global Celebration
Mardi Gras is celebrated in more than 50 countries, including Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. Related popular practices are associated with Carnival celebrations before the fasting and religious obligations associated with the penitential season of Lent. During the liturgical season of Lent, some Christians abstain from certain foods such as meat, eggs, dairy products, and alcoholic beverages.
In Mobile, Alabama, Mardi Gras-associated social events begin in November, followed by mystic society balls New Year's Eve, followed by parades and balls in January and February, celebrating up to midnight before Ash Wednesday. The three-day Carnival of Binche, near Mons, is one of the best known in Belgium. It takes place around Shrove Tuesday (or Mardi Gras) just before Lent. Performers known as Gilles wear elaborate costumes in the national colours of red, black and yellow.
In the Czech Republic, it is a folk tradition to celebrate Mardi Gras, which is called Masopust (meat-fast, i.e. beginning of the fast there). The celebration on the same day in Germany knows many different terms, depending on the region, such as Fastnacht, meaning the eve of the fast that takes place during Lent, or Veilchensdienstag (Violet Tuesday), as it is called in the Lower Rhine region. The celebrations often stretch from Epiphany, known in sections of Germany as Heilige Drei Könige, through the night before Ash Wednesday, and is variously known by different names, such as Karneval or Fasching in Germany, Austria and German-speaking areas of Switzerland. Karneval is filled with large banquets held by the various organizing societies and generally comes to a climax beginning on what is variously known as Schmutziger Donnerstag or Fetter Donnerstag (Fat Thursday), Unsinniger Donnerstag (Nonsense Thursday), Altweiberfastnacht, Greesentag and others.
In Italy Mardi Gras is called Martedì Grasso (Fat Tuesday). It is the main day of Carnival along with the Thursday before, called Giovedí Grasso (Fat Thursday), which ratifies the start of the celebrations. The most famous Carnivals in northern Italy are in Venice, Viareggio and Ivrea, while in the southern part of Italy the Sardinian Sartiglia and the intriguing apotropaic masks, especially the mamuthones, issohadores, s'urtzu (and so on), are more popular, belonging to a very ancient tradition. Ivrea has the characteristic "Battle of Oranges" that finds its roots in medieval times. In Sweden the celebration is called Fettisdagen, when fastlagsbulle is eaten, more commonly called Semla. The name comes from the words "fett" (fat) and "tisdag" (Tuesday).
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