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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 ofNew 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 Negro 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.
