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New Orleans is most famous for its Mardi Gras carnival.
It is held in February, and that is the time that most travellers
visit the area and the point of the festival is pretty much
just having a damn fine time. Prices do soar in New Orleans
over Mardi Gras, though, and you may find yourself priced
out of the desirable French Quarter.
What's it about?
Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras - Fat Monday and Fat Tuesday -
are the culmination of what was originally a Roman Catholic
celebration to mark the forty-seven days before Easter. There
are eleven days of parades leading up to Mardi Gras day. During
this time there are parades every night, and during the day
sometimes over the weekend, ending up with twenty to thirty
parades altogether.
The whole crazy tradition of these parades started in the
mid-1800s, when they were organised by the wealthy elite who
formed secret societies called 'crews'. Today there are over
fifty crews, most of them named after Greek and Roman Gods
like Saturn, Bacchus, Orpheus and Endemion. Each of these
crews has its own float to move through the humming streets
of New Orleans, and these floats are painstakingly decorated
to become spectacles worthy of the event.
There are numerous traditions surrounding the decorum of
the float-riders. It is forbidden to take your mask off while
riding the float, and this tradition, along with the throwing
of beads, dates back to the 1800s. Bead-throwing involves
the people riding the floats chucking strings of big, sparkly,
coloured beads into the crowd, who then string them around
their necks. Spectators tend to compete to see who can end
up wearing the most strings of beads by the end of a night
of floaty revelry.
Carnival and Sub-Cultures
Up until the 'Orpheus' crew was founded in 1994, crews were
segregated by race and gender. Orpheus lets anyone ride, as
long as you can afford the cool boarding fee of six hundred
and seventy-five dollars. Nevertheless, New Orleans is a divided
city, both racially and economically, and every section of
the community celebrates in their own way.
In the Treme neighbourhood, for instance, which lies
just North of the French Quarter, the references aren't to
Greek Gods but to Native American and African cultures. Black
New Orleaneans have been parading as Indians for over a hundred
years. It is a celebration of the protection given to fugitive
slaves by the Native American tribes that lived in the swamps.
The 'Indian' gangs patrol the streets, looking for other gangs
to challenge in song and dance.
The big procession on Mardi Gras day is Zulu, which
was set up in 1916 as a parody of the all-white crews. Like
every crew, Zulu has its dress rules - instead of a mask,
participants wear afro wigs and face paint in a mockery of
racist stereotypes.
At the End of the Party
At the stroke of midnight the police march down Bourbon
Street and the whole party comes to an end. New Orleaneans
rate Mardi Gras' success depending on how much trash has been
collected; the amount usually totals at around a thousand
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