Women would vie for the opportunity to be scourged by the young men, some baring their flesh to get the most benefit from the fertility blessing. The celebrations got so bawdy that the countryfolk began to wear masks. Sounds a lot like Mardi Gras in the French Quarter to me. And the parade-goers visitors and natives alike who try to look cool, like they don't really care if they catch any beads or not, shoot, child, they're just kidding themselves. Deep down inside, everybody wants to catch Mardi Gras beads, especially them fancy, extra-long, giant pearl beads, because it's like good luck raining down on you from the heavens.
Beads are blessings from the masked demi-gods, from the anonymous fertility spirits of the season.
Maybe youve never seen a Mardi Gras parade. Well that's where normally reasonable people spend lots of time and money building rickety mountains of chicken wire and papier-mache on the back of a flat bed truck. Then they paint and decorate these outrageous devices as garishly as possible, and make gawdy costumes to match. And then they wear a mask so nobody will recognize 'em. Over 50 parades roll during the last 12 days of the Mardi Gras season, and they really are a spectacle, a confabulation of the fantabulous.