La historia del Mardi Gras

El Mardi Gras cae el martes anterior al Miércoles de Ceniza, el inicio de la Cuaresma. Sus raíces se remontan a mucho antes del cristianismo: los historiadores rastrean sus antecedentes paganos hasta festivales romanos como las Lupercales y las Saturnales - celebraciones de finales del invierno dedicadas a la primavera, la fertilidad y la relajación de las jerarquías sociales. A medida que el cristianismo se extendió por Europa, las autoridades a menudo absorbieron, en lugar de abolir, estas tradiciones populares, vinculando sus fechas al calendario litúrgico.

El nombre es francés: Mardi significa martes y Gras significa graso. "Martes de Carnaval" alude a la práctica secular de comer alimentos ricos y perecederos - carne, mantequilla, huevos - antes de los 40 días de ayuno cuaresmal. En Inglaterra ese mismo día se convirtió en el Shrove Tuesday, o Día de los Panqueques.

El Mardi Gras llegó a Norteamérica a través de la exploración católica francesa. El 2 de marzo de 1699, el explorador franco-canadiense Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, desembarcó unas sesenta millas al sur de la futura New Orleans. Al darse cuenta de que era la víspera de la fiesta, bautizó el lugar como "Pointe du Mardi Gras" - el primer uso registrado del nombre en el continente.

En 1703, el asentamiento de Fort Louis de la Louisiane (la actual Mobile, Alabama) celebró el primer Mardi Gras oficial en lo que hoy es Estados Unidos. En 1704, Mobile formó una sociedad secreta, la Masque de la Mobile, precursora del sistema de krewes. New Orleans fue fundada por Bienville en 1718, y hacia la década de 1730 el Mardi Gras ya se celebraba abiertamente allí - con elegantes bailes de sociedad, pero todavía sin desfiles.

By the mid-19th century, New Orleans Mardi Gras had grown chaotic and sometimes violent. The turning point came on 8 February 1857, when the Mistick Krewe of Comus staged the first organised, themed night parade - floats, costumed maskers, and torchlight - before retiring to a grand ball. Comus coined the word "krewe" and set the template still in use today: a theme, decorated floats, masked riders, and a private ball.

Others followed in its wake: the Twelfth Night Revelers (1870), Rex (1872), the Krewe of Proteus (1882), and the Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club, which first appeared in 1909.

In 1872 a group of businessmen created the Rex Organisation - Rex is Latin for "king" - to stage a daytime parade and spur post-war tourism. Rex established the title "King of Carnival" and adopted the anthem still sung today, "If Ever I Cease to Love." To this day Rex arrives by river on Lundi Gras and receives the key to the city from the Mayor on Fat Tuesday.

Rex chose the colors of Carnival - purple, green, and gold - in 1872. Their now-famous meanings came two decades later: the 1892 Rex parade, themed "Symbolism of Colors," assigned purple to justice, green to faith, and gold to power. The colors were not given those meanings in 1872, and the popular tale that they honored Russia's visiting Grand Duke Alexei is a debunked myth.

Throwing trinkets to the crowd began in the early 1870s with the Twelfth Night Revelers. The modern aluminium doubloon came much later: Rex introduced it in 1960, designed by H. Alvin Sharpe. European glass beads gave way to plastic by the 1960s, and today LED and hand-decorated throws are the most coveted.

Zulu's hand-painted coconuts are the most prized catch of all. The all-female Krewe of Muses is famous for its hand-glittered high-heeled shoes - both are handed out or thrown in tiny numbers, which is exactly why catching one is a story.

En 1875, el gobernador Henry Warmoth firmó la "Mardi Gras Act," que convirtió el Martes de Carnaval en día festivo legal oficial de Louisiana - una condición que aún conserva.

Modern Carnival was reshaped by the super krewes - huge, open-membership clubs with enormous floats, hundreds of riders, and celebrity monarchs. Endymion first paraded in 1967 (and now ends inside the Superdome); Bacchus broke with old-line tradition in 1969 by crowning Hollywood's Danny Kaye as its first celebrity king and opening its ball to the public.

Orpheus, co-founded by New Orleans native Harry Connick Jr. in 1993, first rolled in 1994 as one of the first major co-ed super krewes. Together they pulled Carnival away from invitation-only secrecy toward the populist, spectacle-driven event visitors know today.

The Black Masking Indian tradition is one of New Orleans' most powerful cultural inheritances. Excluded from the white krewes, Black New Orleanians built their own: masking in elaborately hand-beaded and feathered suits that honor both African ceremonial dress and the Native American peoples who once sheltered escaped enslaved Africans in the bayous.

Each tribe - the Wild Magnolias, Wild Tchoupitoulas, and others - is hierarchical, led by a Big Chief, and sews an entirely new suit by hand every year. The suits are widely regarded as among the finest contemporary folk art in the country.

El Mardi Gras ha sido durante mucho tiempo un barómetro de la estabilidad cívica, suspendido siempre que la guerra o el desastre hacían insostenible la celebración: durante la Guerra Civil (1862-1865), tras la Batalla de Liberty Place de 1875, durante la Primera Guerra Mundial (1918-1919, agravada por la pandemia de gripe) y a lo largo de la Segunda Guerra Mundial (1942-1945). La temporada de 1946, ya terminada la guerra, se vivió como un acto de alivio colectivo.

The krewe system was racially and socially exclusive from its 1857 start. In response, Black New Orleanians built parallel traditions - the Zulu club and the Mardi Gras Indians. In 1991 Councilwoman Dorothy Mae Taylor pushed through an ordinance requiring krewes to certify they did not discriminate as a condition of a parade permit.

Three of the oldest krewes - Comus, Momus, and Proteus - stopped parading rather than comply. Courts later weakened the ordinance, but only Proteus returned to the streets, in 2000; Comus and Momus have never paraded again. Newer krewes are typically far more integrated.

Hurricane Katrina struck on 29 August 2005, flooding about 80% of the city. Six months later, in February 2006, New Orleans held a smaller-than-usual but defiant first Carnival back - some floats even kept the waterline stains - and it is remembered as one of the most emotionally charged Mardi Gras in the city's history.

In 2021 the pandemic cancelled the parades, so New Orleanians turned their houses into floats. Thousands of homes were decorated as "Yardi Gras" house floats, letting people celebrate safely from the sidewalk - proof that the city will find a way to roll even when the streets cannot.