The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-02-10
MARDI-GRAS.

Tuesday; but the day, whatever il
i name, means nothing more than
q period of diversion. consecrated for Ger
d turtles by much pomp and pageantry in tn
I principal cities of insular and continents
P Europe, even to the boundaries of the Chris
tan East This commemoration may b
traced on the backward courses Of time, t
the Epiphany, better known in the tradition
Of England as Twelfth Night, or Kings Day
The latter, even, is but an appellation evi
IDENTIFY borrowed from the French "Jour de,
Rois and other expressions borrowed from
the Italian and Spanish in equal signif
canoe. Our pen, however, does Lot run into
that particular direction. 1t has, more appo.
sitely, to search into the originals of feast,
which, of Enthusiastically ancient date, has
outlived the centuries Of an olden world, to
be transferred to a new one, and, in no spot
of it, with choicest contributions to elegance
and taste, made respectable by fanciful antics
and gentlemanly masquerades. Though Gu
rious antiquaries, less accurate than curious,
have attempted to refer its origins to the sat-
devotions paid to Carna, an underlined and un-
accepted inferior pagan deity, sounder inqui-
ries, even in SO tritiing question as that of
uproarious merriment and genial tomfoolery,
have redeemed the custom and name of the
festival from the puzzingly erudite specula-
tions of archaologists.
Du Gauge, one Of the most learned Of them
all, in his exposition Of the usages, customs
and sports of the middle ages, gravely tells
US, the latter taught Ounces studiorum-
that the definition of the word grows out of
two words carne, meat, and ara, swallow
That is. on this day, this Mardi- Gras, when
men feel fat, swallow as much meat as you
can, because Wednesday, the morrow, will
condemn you to the abstinence and denial,
wherein you may not indulge your gorbellied
appetites 1t seems to US, however, the galley
slaves Of the press-gang, that we can alight
on better derivation for the meaning and
reach of the festival in the various desgna-
tons by which it is consecrated in the Ian
ervance.
The Italians call it Ldrni rae, or Cdrne sciqle,
a bidding, temporary bidding of farewell to |
meat for the lenten days. For the same |
period, the Spaniards call it, with the help Of
the Latin language, Carnestolendas, or meat,
cut off from indulgence tor the same period |
Of time. The Germans, in their earliest |
prayer-books, at a time when Germany was
more Catholic than Mr.. Bismarck would have
her now be, defined the festival as Fasten-
liens-dag, the fasting Tuesday. In Holland,
where the earliest traditions of the Church
we're most ruthlessly plucked away
rom the popular mind, the day is OBJ
served as the Vleesch-day, or VLeesch-tyd,
he day for the gorging Of meat. In France,
IS in Louisiana, long before there were any
sexes, or rather Reyes; long before any
IIystic ''Krewes' long before any '.Knights
# Comus;" long before any Twelfth Night
Jewelers.; it was known as the Mardi- Gras,
he Fa. Tuesday, the day for rollicking and
for swilling and gormandzng to
mes fill, before the notifications of the next I
forming, when the crossing of the forehead
man, comes to warn the jewellers of an hour ,
ito season, at least, of abstinence from the
'ss sober thoughts of the day. In England, /
nd to our mind, the expression of Shrove v
tuesday,. though full of wild pranks and bur- '
: enjoyments, is most touching and signif-
mt t
1t conveys blending of the popular sports C
Id of the solemn beliefs of the period, which "
II Kenelm Digby has called the cages of c
aith. In that period with the reek of the Il
tchen and fumes of the tavern hanging h
'out them; with the sound of the coarser n
st land the echoes of the unseemly ditty fl
Ill lingering in the air, the old forefathers,
the simplicity of unperverted natures, IL
,uld reverently wend their way to the con- W
'sional, and there furnish up their some &C
lat laden religious consciences on Shrove tn
lesday, more fruitfully to enter the cere- b.
onies of Ash Wednesday, with its terrible gi
monitions Of the nothingness of human ar
3. There, and in compensation for the wild nc
7elries of the fore-day, they by prayer
lift and penance purified those consciences
the more exacting demands and rigid self I'll
malls Of the Quadragesima. ia
We dismiss, however, this more serious ye
'ect of Mardi-Gras, to look, even passingly,
o its more genial indulgences, where its tn
'ervance has been maintained, and, per lea
IS, still maintained, whatever cynics and I'll,
eacres may say maintained as custom DR.
asing and, it may be, instructive 1t Pb
sht surprise many of US Americans mi
ose baptismal record, as free and, for to
mselves, thinking people, is not quite CO,
1dred years old-it might surprise us sa,
orleans, with our precocious claims to sit
immature judgments on those who have
coded US in building up the estates of Ne
lization, Of which we are but the very cha
st legatees, to tell them that, even in
So fooleries, the most notable nations of u JI:
earth, in one form or another took and ! (;