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Mardi Gras (UK: / ˌ m ɑːr d i ˈ ɡ r ɑː /, US: / ˈ m ɑːr d i ɡ r ɑː /; [1] [2] also known as Shrove Tuesday) is the final day of Carnival (also known as Shrovetide or Fastelavn); it thus falls on the day before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. [3]
In 1856, 21 businessmen gathered at a club room in the French Quarter to organize a secret society to observe Mardi Gras with a formal parade. They founded New Orleans' first and oldest krewe, the Mistick Krewe of Comus. According to one historian, "Comus was aggressively English in its celebration of what New Orleans had always considered a ...
The Knights of Momus ("KOM") were a Mardi Gras society in Galveston, Texas, founded in 1871. [6] The original Knights of Momus went defunct around the time of World War II. A new group was founded in the mid-1980s, and seeking to rekindle the spirit of the original group, adopted the Momus name. The group was named after the Greek god Momus.
Mardi Gras arrived in North America as a sedate French Catholic tradition with the Le Moyne brothers, [3] Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, in the late 17th century, when King Louis XIV sent the pair to defend France's claim on the territory of Louisiane, which included what are now the U.S. states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Since its first impromptu celebrations in the early 1700's, Mardi Gras was regularly cancelled or banned for its destructive drunken parties—that is until 1837, when a secret society known as ...
The history of Mardi Gras in the United States started with Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville's defense of the Louisiane territory (modern-day Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and parts Texas.) He and his men settled a camp around 60 miles away from present-day New Orleans on Mardi Gras in 1699. [ 6 ]
Dancing in Congo Square, 1886. Mardi Gras Indians have been practicing their traditions in New Orleans since at least the 18th century. The colony of New Orleans was founded by the French in 1718, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha Tribe, and within the first decade 5,000 enslaved Africans were trafficked to the colony.
Mardi is the French word for Tuesday, and gras means "fat." This name comes from the custom of eating all the fatty, rich foods in the house prior to Lent in order to prepare for fasting and ...