At the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, people grab for trinkets that are
tossed from the parade floats.
Carnival time!
Mardi Gras
The world’s turned topsy-turvy! It’s snowing bits of paper. Clowns are
dancing with witches. And kings and queens walk hand-in-hand with
beggars. It’s the Mardi Gras [(mahr]{.smallcaps} dee grah) carnival.
Everyone roams the streets wearing a costume and mask. And everyone
parades and goes to parties.
Mardi Gras is French for \”Fat Tuesday.” The name comes from the old
custom of parading a fat ox through the streets of Paris on this day.
The ox was to remind the people that they were not to eat meat during
Lent— the time from Ash Wednesday (see page 96) to Easter Sunday (see
page 142).
Mardi Gras can be as early as February 3 or as late as March 9. The
exact date depends on the date set for Easter Sunday.
French people who came to America brought with them the custom of
celebrating Mardi Gras. The most famous Mardi Gras carnival in the
United States is at New Orleans, Louisiana. There are also carnivals and
parades in Biloxi, Mississippi, Mobile, Alabama, and other cities.
Merrymakers in France still enjoy the fun of Mardi Gras. So do people in
places as far apart as Viareggio in Italy and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
There is also a famous Mardi Gras carnival in the little town of Binche
in Belgium. There,
the people dress in colorful clown costumes. On their heads they wear
tall bunches of
In southern Italy, the people dress up in
ostrich feathers. As the clowns, or gilles as they are called, dance
down the street, the
costumes and put on an ancient play during Mardi Gras.
bells hanging from their belts jingle and jangle. The gilles also
carry baskets of
oranges. As they dance along, they throw
oranges to the watching crowd.
Mardi Gras is also known as Shrove
Tuesday. This name comes from the custom of confessing one’s sins on the
day before Lent begins. Shrove means “forgiven one’s sins.”
People in Nice, France, wear giant masks in the Mardi Gras parade.
During Mardi Gras, people in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, dance in the
streets.
