Fatuous Facts
FEASTING
Mardi Gras – French for ‘Fat Tuesday’ – is a Carnival celebration culminating on Shrove Tuesday – the day before Ash Wednesday –beginning around the Christian feast of the Epiphany. The name reflects the practice of the final night of eating rich, fatty foods before the fasting of Lent.
FORNICATION
The origins precede Christianity, possibly linked to the ancient Roman pagan festival Lupercalia: a ‘bloody, violent and sexually charged celebration awash with animal sacrifice, random matchmaking and coupling in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility’.
FRENCH
The first American Mardi Gras reputedly took place on March 3, 1699, when French explorers Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville and Sieur de Bienville landed near New Orleans, Louisiana and held a small celebration naming their landing spot Point du Mardi Gras.
FORCE
Thereafter New Orleans and other French settlements celebrated with street parties, masked balls and lavish dinners. The Spanish abolished these ‘rowdy rituals’ when they took over Louisiana in 1762. The ban remained in force until it became a U.S. state in 1812.
FLASHING
Breast-baring in New Orleans Mardi Gras, has been documented since 1889, when the Times-Democrat decried the “degree of immodesty exhibited by nearly all female masqueraders seen on the streets.”
FAVOURS
Videos at the end of the 20th century encouraged toplessness ‘in exchange for beads and trinkets’. Social scientists at the 1991 Mardi Gras found 1,200 instances of “ritual disrobement” in exchange for beads or other favours.
■ Sources: Wikipedia/History.Com
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