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the Mardi Gras issue

Cajun Carnival La Danse de Mardi Gras by Sarah Baird + photos by Denny Culbert

U nless you’re tossing out beads from high atop a float, or marching with a hip-shaking dance troupe, it’s safe to say that Mardi Gras in most cities is, well, a pretty passive time. Sure, we all holler and jump (and maybe throw a few elbows) at the chance to get our paws on a MoonPie, but after the heat of the moment has passed? We’re mostly back to just ogling the beauty of the procession and debating who has the best king cake in town. Parade watching is, by its very nature, mostly a spectator sport. In rural communities across Acadiana, though, a different kind of Mardi Gras reigns. The Courir de Mardi Gras (loosely translated, “running of the Mardi Gras”) is a high-spirited, heart-racing procession that requires a lot of enthusiasm and a decent

helping of athleticism. This is not for the meek or uncoordinated; the courir requires full and complete audience participation. And, yes, you’re probably going to have to run — in costume. The courir is a tradition that can trace its winding lineage back to the shores of France, and involves going house to house asking for “charity” (read: foodstuffs) on the day before Ash Wednesday. In Cajun country, asking for these edible gifts morphed quickly into the ritual of “begging” for the ingredients to make a gumbo (think: chickens, sausage, rice, onions), which would then be cooked up later in the afternoon. Each year, after a sunrise wake-up and an all-day march down country roads on the hunt for fixings, runners would gather around the pot for a

fortifying and justly rewarding meal based on the alms they’d been given for their hard day’s work (and party). Today, the roux for the gumbo is already usually bubbling by the time the runners take off (and there’s plenty more chicken and sausage than that which runners gather), but the loose cast of courir characters has remained the same. There are the runners (also called the Mardi Gras — that’s the bulk of folks), who grovel and whine and belly crawl towards preordained stops at houses along the route, pleading for the makings of a gumbo with a cry of, “Pardon! Pardon!” There’s the capitaine , who — along with a small band of old-line revelers — oversees

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MY ROUSES EVERYDAY JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2018

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