Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on one's point of view, we were three weeks early for Mardi Gras. However, the city was revving up for its full celebration, which takes place during the two weeks before ShroveTuesday. Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras or "Fat Tuesday") marks the last day before the fasting of Lent begins. Therefore, food, drink and merriment abound before the long period of privation, which ends at Easter. Most well-known are the numerous parades which occur during the last 2 weeks before Mardi Gras. In other countries, for example Trinidad, or Brazil (Rio), this is known as Carnival. All these celebrations have in common the huge parades and elaborately costumed participants.
In 1872, a group of businessmen invented "Rex", the king of Carnival. Each year a king and queen are crowned from among many competing "krewes" (crews). The NOLA colours for Mardi Gras are purple, green and gold which were selected by the same businessmen to honour the visiting Russian Duke Alexis Romanoff who had these as house colours. Purple represents justice, green, faith and gold, power. The city was already replete with decorations and the tourist shops full of purple, green and gold souvenirs and costumes. even some horses and dogs sported the right colours!
Although we were early for Mardi Gras, we did see several people dressed up for the gathering in memory of David Bowie.
No comments:
Post a Comment