Carnival Time
’Come on take me to the Mardi Gras’
Hundred of years ago, the followers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they took with them their tradition of celebrating carnival
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In fact, Mardi Gras used to represent a ‘last fling’ before the thin times of lent where, in more primitive societies, the winter stores of food for both humans and animals were running down, in a society before fridges and freezers allowed us to store provisions indefinitely. It was necessary to use up all remaining meat and animal products such as eggs and butter so why not make a party of it? It also use to be a time of ‘acceptable naughtiness’ when people disguised themselves behind masks and got up to things they ‘didn’t ought to’!
Watch out for the burning of the straw-filled Carnival king, symbol for infertility, sins, and bad luck – an important character in the traditions of modern carnival, who is burned in a spectacular ritual at the end of the festivities, the day before Ash Wednesday.
February and March see carnivals (or carnavals) all over the PO – singing, dancing, eating and drinking, live music, fancy dress, parades and fireworks, along with the symbolic burning of evil spirits - but the origins of these celebrations, ending on Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) around forty days before Easter, are actually less frivolous than the word carnival denotes today.
