Fifteen years ago, my sister wanted us to join her on a trip
to Mobile, Alabama and attend a Mardi Gras parade. I really wasn’t eager to drive ten hours to
see a thirty minute parade. Besides,
Mardi Gras was in New Orleans with beads and boobs. She wasn’t tricking me.
“Actually,” Laurie said. “Mardi Gras was born in
Mobile. And they don’t do it like New
Orleans. This one is more family
friendly.”
“You want me to drive ten hours for a family friendly
parade? What’s the fun in that?”
I agreed to go, but I was skeptical about her claims of
Mobile being the birth place of the celebration that had become synonymous with
New Orleans. Before we left, I entered
Barnes and Noble, grabbed a cup of coffee and set about to prove my sister wrong. However, I was the one with faulty
knowledge. You can imagine my
shock. My sister was right!
Some trace the first Mardi Gras to the year 1703, one year
after the founding of Mobile. Originally
called Boeuf Gras (Faulted Ox), it was a great celebration on the Tuesday
before Ash Wednesday (now returned to as Fat Tuesday) with quite a bit of
eating and revelry to usher in the Lenten season. Of course, this wasn’t the Mardi Gras we know
today.
It wasn’t until 1830, however, that it really took off. Although it began on New Year’s Eve and not
Fat Tuesday, Michael Krafft formed the Cowbellion de Rakan Society and kept
their dinner party going. They raided a
nearby hardware store, making off with rakes, hoes and cowbells and went
banging these merriments through the streets.
It was here that the modern Mardi Gras began with its mystic
societies. New Orleans didn’t get
involved until 27 years later when members of the Cowbellion de Rakan Society
traveled to the famous city to help it form its own mystic society and the Crew
of Comus (Krewe of Kumus) was born.
The Civil War brought an end to the fun as war is ought to
do. At the end of it, the south lost and
was back under the Union. Our country
was whole again, but Mobile was a discouraged city in a state of mourning. Enter Joseph Stillwell Cain.
Not wanting to see his city continue in its state of
depression, Cain set out to bolster their spirits and remind them that life is
a celebration. That’s something many of
us need to be reminded of quite often.
On Fat Tuesday, also known as Mardi Gras Day, in 1866, he made himself
up to resemble a Chickasaw Indian, decorated a coal wagon, and with the
assistance of a mule pulled his way in a one-float parade up and down the city
streets of Mobile. Mardi Gras was
reincarnated and has continued to expand and thrive ever since. It has even made its way down to Florida
where I am.
I’m not sure when the flashing of boobs for beads began and
I refuse to ask my sister for more information.
She’s been right enough for my lifetime.
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