page_title: Courir de Mardi Gras
section_title: Mamou
hierarchical_section_title: Courir de Mardi Gras / Notable Courir celebrations / Mamou
caption_attribution_description: Courir de Mardi Gras, Mamou, Louisiana
context_page_description: The Courir de Mardi Gras is a traditional Mardi Gras event held in many Cajun and Creole communities of French Louisiana on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Courir de Mardi Gras is Louisiana French for "Fat Tuesday Run". This rural Mardi Gras celebration is based on early begging rituals, similar to those still celebrated by mummers, wassailers, and celebrants of Halloween. As Mardi Gras is the celebration of the final day before Lent, celebrants drink and eat heavily, dressing in specialized costumes, ostensibly to protect their identities. In Acadiana, popular practices include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, drinking alcohol, begging, trail riding, feasting, and whipping. Mardi Gras is one of the few occasions when people are allowed to publicly wear masks in Louisiana. Dance for a Chicken: The Cajun Mardi Gras, a documentary by filmmaker Pat Mire, provides great insight into the history and evolution of this cultural tradition. In popular culture, two HBO series also make reference to the tradition.
context_section_description: In Evangeline Parish, the Mamou celebration starts with a street dance held the Monday evening before Mardi Gras, with bands such as Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys performing. A crowd favorite is the Mamou variation of the Chanson de Mardi Gras. The next day a street party begins, in anticipation of the Courir, who have been riding through the countryside collecting ingredients for the evening gumbo. The Mamou Courir abides by the older traditions, with the Capitaines unmasked and all other revelers masked in the all-male troupe. They are accompanied by a wagon for the musicians and trailers for participants who do not have horses.
  The event was suspended twice in its history, during the American Civil War and during World War Two. By the mid-1940s the courir tradition in Mamou had declined but was revived by Alfred "Fred" Tate, Revon Reed, and Paul Tate, proprietors of the then newly opened "Fred's Lounge".
caption: Mamou courir in the late 1990s
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2006:11:02 13:51:50", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8051", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "985", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "934"}