Page 2, IMPACT, Carnival Supplement

The Mardi Gras Mystique

New Orleans invented Mardi Gras! How's that for openers? All the textbooks on the subject of writing emphasize the importance of getting the reader's attention early on. Now that I have apparently succeeded in doing that I'm faced with the responsibility of defending that attention-getter. Mardi Gras, as an event, or rather as a series of events, exists outside of New Orleans and has for many centuries. Mardi Gras as an experience, however, as a kind of drama with its own peculiar mystique is something unique to this city. It came here as a foreign import, but remained to evolve in a way that almost certainly couldn't have happened anywhere else. I've heard it said that Orleanians spend six months getting ready for it and the next six months talking about it. Exaggeration, perhaps, but then that's exactly what Mardi Gras, New Orleans style, is really all about.

A really full grasp of the extraordinary phenomenon of New Orleans Mardi Gras is unlikely, but impossible without some knowledge of its history. Mardi Gras, of course, is French for Fat Tuesday. This particular Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of the penitential season of Lent in the Christian Church calendar. The date of Ash Wednesday is dependent on the date of Easter, a "moveable feast" in the Christian year. Consequently, the date of Mardi Gras varies from year to year, from early February to early March. Mardi Gras or Carnival is actually a season, varying from a few days in some places to several weeks as in New Orleans. The season always culminates on the big day, Fat Tuesday.

The derivation of the word Carnival provides some clues. There are various opinions regarding this. One commonly accepted idea is that the word comes from the Latin words for farewell to meat. This refers to abstinence from meat during the forty days of Lent of the Christian year. Another view is that the word means "farewell to the flesh", or abstinence from worldly pleasures, sex included. The general idea, it seems, was that since Lent was to be a time of abstinence that people should, in this extended ritual, gorge themselves on the pleasures of the flesh that they were soon to be required to give up, at least temporarily. A short walk around the

French Quarter during Carnival, especially on Mardi Gras itself, will show "the pleasures of the flesh", food, drink, sex etc. being amply and universally indulged.

The origins of Carnival are not certain, except that it is to be found in preChristian customs. The pagans of ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Greece and Rome all. had Spring Festivals that were connected with the fertility of the earth. One example was the Roman Saturnalia, held in honor of Saturn who, among other things, was the God of the sowing of the seed. This festival in honor of seed sowing lasted seven days. Social rank was temporarily forgotten and slaves dined with their masters. Feasting, drinking and sexual activity were unrestricted. As was the case with many other pagan

mouth of the Mississippi stopped to rest for the day on the banks of a small bayou about twelve miles from the river's mouth. The men, tired and a long way from home, apparently were thinking how things were back home in France where there was dancing in the streets. They named the bayou Bayou Mardi Gras, a name it bears to this day. Nineteen years later, Iberville's brother Bienville founded the city of New Orleans, somewhat north of the spot, on a great bend of the Mississippi. Mardi Gras, in one form or another, has been part of New Orleans ever since. Mardi Gras celebrations in those early days must have been poor ones in many ways, particularly when compared to the glittering spectacles of today.

I have kept the historical narrative

Carnival. That need is the need to get high.

The need to get high is not something invented by the drug culture of the 60's, although they might have wanted us to believe otherwise. The need is as old as man himself. The practice of attempting it with substances such as alcohol or other drugs is nothing new. The same is true for the use of exotic sexual adventures, unusual foods, even religious mysticism. Although alcohol, drugs, sex etc. are everywhere to be found in our Mardi Gras, they are still not the essence of the thing. Getting high is just a contemporary term for ecstasy. The dictionary defines ecstasy as being "a state of being beyond reason or self-control; a state of overwhelming emotion, especially rapturous delight." A review of the derivation of the world shows that it means literally "to stand outside oneself".

Getting high; experiencing ecstasy; standing outside oneself; escape from a humdrum existence; being someone else just for a little while; these are all synonyms for what I call the Mardi Gras Mystique. This is the ultimate development of Mardi Gras. I think that it was inevitable that this universal human need would surface and take root in our Mardi Gras. All of the necessary elements were present already and then the catalyst of the American Frontier spirit, the newness of a New World gave it its special New Orleans flavor. We imported it and in typical American fashion made it our own, on our own way.

Gay people, in turn, have added their own special flavor to Mardi Gras. It's

a kind of turning of the tables. While Straight America comes to be something that they are not (at least not on the surface) Gay America comes to be something that they are but often cannot be the rest of the year. During this time it seems that most of the prejudices that separate us are forgotten and we enjoy one another for what we are or are not, whatever the case may be. And it all doesn't matter.

Welcome to "The City that Care Forgot". Be whoever or whatever you want to be! If you come and see only the spectacle and don't find the Mardi Gras. Mystique, you've only visited a kind of ersatz Disneyland. To use a Cajun expression: Come and enjoy us!

Jim West

festivals, Saturnalia and all the other forerunners of the present day Carnival were more or less Christianized after Christianity became the dominant religion of the western world. The Church never quite succeeded with Carnival, however, since by its very nature, Carnival not only condones but actively promotes the very things traditionally condemned by the Christian Church.

Although Carnival is celebrated all over the world, it is especially found in Southern Europe and in those places settled or colonized by Southern Europeans such as Brazil, Mexico and the southern United States. The earliest mention we find of Mardi Gras in connection with Louisiana is the occasion of Mardi Gras in 1699 when Iberville and his group, exploring the area near the

here to a minimum because I think that the history of Mardi Gras, though interesting, does not fully explain the development of the mystique of Mardi Gras. I don't think it can be fully explained, nor do I think it should be. Why try to explain a sunset, for instance, and rob it of its power to inspire the thrill of experiencing its naked beauty. On the other hand, knowing from whence it comes, can help us to theorize, and thus more fully enjoy, the spirit of Mardi Gras. The maskers, the costumes, the Carnival balls, the parades, the sense of reckless abandon that seems to be in the air itself, are all manifestations of that spirit. I don't believe they create the spirit, they are only ways of expressing a need that is very basic to all of us, and especially evident in New Orleans