Today, many Christians around Georgia will celebrate Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, a season of fasting and reflection. Ash Wednesday is also, of course, the day after Mardi Gras. Salvation South editor Chuck Reece is here with a brief history of how the South’s celebrations of Mardi Gras reach back to ancient times.

Mardi Gras

Credit: Adobe Stock

TRANSCRIPT:

Chuck Reece: Happy Wednesday. I have a question for you: Do you have a hangover this morning?

I ask only because yesterday was Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras Day. While Mardi Gras parades are not common here in Georgia, they roll through cities of all sizes in Louisiana — from New Orleans to little Mamou in Cajun country. 

I have often published the work of a wonderful writer named Richard Murff. Many years back, he sent me a piece about the history of Mardi Gras celebrations in Louisiana. And a few lines he wrote in that story, trying to suss out the real purpose of Mardi Gras, have stuck with me. Mardi Gras, Richard wrote, and I quote, is “not a celebration for the sake of being drunk: it is a feast before the coming famine, a celebration of life in the face of approaching death. The body will die but what of it? We are in God’s hands.”

Richard was pointing to a fact no one can deny: Death is inevitable. So Mardi Gras reminds us not to — under any circumstances — neglect the joy of the life we have. 

The history of the Carnival season travels back to ancient times, celebrations held in various cultures to greet springtime. When Christianity arrived a couple thousand years ago, Carnival season became tied to the church calendar. It begins on January 6th, the church’s Feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates the three wise men bringing gifts to the infant Jesus in Bethlehem. 

And it ends eight or nine weeks later with Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent — that 40-day season of repentance and fasting. Also known as today. If you attend a Christian church, you might have a cross of ashes on your forehead right now. And you have probably decided what you intend to give up — chocolate, social media, road rage, whatever — for the next 40 days. Like me, you might or might not succeed. 

I remember Ash Wednesday the first time I was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, watching hundreds of people walking by bleary-eyed, ashes on their foreheads, beginning their season of repentance.

Or maybe Lent is a celebration of a different sort. Another thing I learned from my friend Richard was that the first North American celebration of Mardi Gras happened in 1705, about 30 miles north of Mobile, Ala., at Fort Louis de la Louisiane, the first capital of the French colony of Louisiana. The year before, an outbreak of yellow fever had killed 20% of the French colonists there. 

“Theoretically,” Richard wrote, “the party was for Lent, but in reality, it was an ‘Aren’t we glad to still be alive?’-type get together.”

“Carnival,” my friend Richard wrote, “is a celebration of the elation we feel — not when things are great, but when we survive as the world comes unhinged.”

Y’all come see us anytime at SalvationSouth.com for stories of the South and its weird, wonderful history.

Salvation South editor Chuck Reece comments on Southern culture and values in a weekly segment that airs Fridays at 7:45 a.m. during Morning Edition and 4:44 p.m. during All Things Considered on GPB Radio. Salvation South Deluxe is a series of longer Salvation South episodes which tell deeper stories of the Southern experience through the unique voices that live it. You can also find them here at GPB.org/SalvationSouth and wherever you get your podcasts.