Mardi Gras, on Foot
Stepping in time with the most whimsical walks of the season
Carnival season, by its very nature, is all about the larger than life, the extravagant excess, the higher than high. And yet, in celebrations all across the region, folk common and lofty alike find themselves drawn down to earth to revel in the chaos and ritual of the day, to dance right on the road to Wonderland itself. Read on to experience a glimpse of five different walking traditions from yesteryear festivities, and perhaps be tempted to step in line this time around.
Krewe of Chewbacchus
New Orleans
If you think you know New Orleans Mardi Gras but have never set foot in a walking parade, a different and deliciously weird Carnival experience awaits. My wife and I never had until 2019, when we were invited to join a subkrewe that marches in the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus Parade—the self-described “satirical space cult” founded in 2010 that operates with the manifesto of “Saving the Galaxy … One Drunken Nerd at a Time.” Consider the possibilities: a parade created to bring together all the Star Wars freaks, Trekkies, Whovians, Red Dwarfs, gamers, cosplayers, cryptozoologists, mad scientists, and UFO conspiracy theorists of America’s most alternative city, to publicly out-do one another with bizarre, beautiful, and hilarious manifestations of their obsessions. To join their number is to exchange your reality for a passport to a twilight zone inhabited by the most inventively peculiar cast of humanoids. Participants in Chewbacchus are more than costumed characters; they are shape-shifters who construct themselves new identities then bring them to life as part of a four-hour progressive art installation through the Faubourg Marigny. Imagine Burning Man getting tired of the traffic and high property taxes out West and relocating to the South, and you’d have the general idea.
Dr. Who and Wonder Woman stroll by arm-in-arm; Harry Potter dashes past, pursued by half a dozen Dementors. An older, bearded man in a white sequined jumpsuit is channeling what Elvis would look like by now had he actually been abducted by aliens in 1977.
Assembling on a Saturday evening as the sky darkens over Homer Plessy Way in the Marigny, our twenty-strong subkrewe—channeling characters human and otherwise from the Wes Anderson movie The Life Aquatic—is gravitationally drawn into a crowd of creatures, none of whom would have looked out of place in the cantina scene from Star Wars. Here comes an eight-foot-tall hot pink wookie; there goes a krewe of Space Vikings. Dr. Who and Wonder Woman stroll by arm-in-arm; Harry Potter dashes past, pursued by half a dozen Dementors. An older, bearded man in a white sequined jumpsuit is channeling what Elvis would look like by now had he actually been abducted by aliens in 1977. A huge glowing brain rides by on a rickshaw, a ten-foot-tall My Little Pony rears overhead, one kid expertly pilots a human hamster wheel. Cyborgs, space-men, -women, and -children; a toothsome krewe of Space Pirates charting their course from the poop deck of a pedal-powered cross between a space shuttle and a pirate ship: they’re all here. Environmentally friendly by design, Chewbacchus permits no motorized conveyances, although battery-operated, wearable electric festoonery is everywhere. Collectively the parade is an exuberant mashup of every sci-fi/fantasy character you ever dreamed of, plus a few that you’ll probably dream about later. When this giddy, glowing, dancing, swirling ball of cyberpunk energy begins to roll, the effect is hallucinatory.
[Read this: Building Mardi Gras—An inside look at a prop manager's day]
As Chewbacchus winds its way through the Marigny, the electricity builds. Crowds press in until you’re not so much walking past spectators as swimming through them. By the time you hit Frenchmen Street, the noise is deafening, everyone is dancing in time, and for a brief, hysterical moment you’re a rock star—your hand-made throws the object of every spectator’s desire. Don’t get used to it, because soon a corner is turned. The song ends, the spell breaks and, suddenly it’s over. You’re a civilian again—exhilarated, exhausted, and already imagining who you’ll be next year. If only time machines were real …
—James Fox-Smith
Krewe de Canailles
Lafayette
Strolling straight through Downtown Lafayette in the 2019 Krewe de Canailles walking parade, I had to smile. Picture it: I’m one of forty dressed as turkey buzzards, all laughing and smiling ear to ear, pulling a huge thirteen-foot tall mastodon float, dancing with parade goers to the Carencro High School Band.
I thought back to the year before—the debut of Canailles—and how, throughout all of the preparations, we wondered: would Lafayette come out to support this new, barrier-free walking parade?
Alongside us, an all-female krewe celebrated the snapping turtle, another honored the Lafayette Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen Buffet (reportedly the last in existence), one memorialized the recently departed Louisiana Ice Gators by shooting memorabilia from a t-shirt cannon.
When the day came, we rounded the corner to start the parade—excited and nervous. To our great joy both sides of the street were lined with people—from small infants to senior citizens, the entire community represented in our streets, a parade for the people by the people. That year, our group, Krewe Fou Que Tchu, were dressed as bakers, sandwich components, condiments, slices of bread, and even male and female versions of the Evangeline Maid. Because we’ve made sustainability a major focus of the parade, there are no motors or beads in sight, only hand-made throws and man-powered floats. We careened back and forth on the pavement, handing out bags of fresh hot dog buns and pulling our plywood replica of La Place des Creoles/Fightinville’s famous revolving loaf of bread sign. Alongside us, an all-female krewe celebrated the snapping turtle, another honored the Lafayette Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen Buffet (reportedly the last in existence), one memorialized the recently departed Louisiana Ice Gators by shooting memorabilia from a t-shirt cannon, and all around were groups representing local TV and business personalities. Spectators of all ages smiled and cheered, called for attention, laughing and pointing and asking us to stop for pictures for and with them. The Lost Bayou Ramblers provided the background music, occasionally pausing to play in place, giving us the chance to break rank and spill onto the sidewalk, interacting and dancing with the excited crowd.
In 2019, as we turned that same corner, we were met by a markedly larger crowd—all anxiously waiting to witness and take part in the newest Lafayette Mardi Gras tradition.
—John “Pudd” Sharp, Captain of Krew Fou Que Tchu
Mardi Gras Indian Parade
New Orleans
The Mardi Gras tradition my family and community has celebrated for generations, commonly referred to as “Masking Indian,” is a New Orleans cultural phenomenon rooted in West African ceremony, dress, and ritual attire, simultaneously ancient and contemporary.
On parade day, my group, the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society, began with pouring a libation to our collective ancestors.
After our libations, we “came out of the door,” a ritual of debuting our attire, called a suit, to all who were gathered to witness our original creative expression of narrative beadwork, rhinestone embellishments, and feather designs.
The ceremony commemorates our past and our future as the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society. We humbly share the universal flame of humanity, peace, and light to carry forth every day.
According to tradition, each member was called within the context of our original song, “Guarding the Flame.” We walked throughout the neighborhood with an African percussion orchestra of djembe, dundun, donno, and bass drums, as well as cow bells and tambourines, making several stops, which we call Sites of Memory. These are the homes of longtime community members and friends of my late father, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr.
We stopped at the Harrison family home and the home of Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, who appeared on his porch dressed in a monarch’s cape and crown to serenade us with his iconic song, “Carnival Time.” We followed with a visit with Lolet Boutté, of the musical Boutté Family, and then the homes of other elders.
Our last stop of the day was to St. Augustine Church in the historic Treme neighborhood. We released white homing doves at the Tomb of the Unknown Slave.
The ceremony commemorates our past and our future as the Guardians of the Flame Maroon Society. We humbly share the universal flame of humanity, peace, and light to carry forth every day. The masking tradition may be associated with a Christian holiday and refer to Native Americans, but, so far as I can tell, it’s the most vibrant existing West African tradition in the New World.
—Cherice Harrison-Nelson, Co-founder of the Mardi Gras Indians Hall of Fame and Big Queen of the Guardians of Flame
The Mardi Gras Indian Parade is one of New Orleans’ most secretive traditions. Only certain people are invited to mask each year, and parade dates, times, and routes are never published in advance.
Courir de Mardi Gras
Eunice
There’s a point, skipping down a dirt road along some remote field in Eunice, capuchin hanging sideway around your neck and a link of boudin in hand, where you quite simply lose time. How long have you been on this journey? What was life like before, exactly? How could you have ever gone a day—in that past life of yours—wearing anything but this animated suit of scrappy, rainbowed fringe so perfectly designed for dancing? How many Bud Lights have you had, anyway? You turn, shade your eyes, and yell at some passing compagnon, covered in mud from chasing a chicken into the crawfish lake, “How far back is the beer truck?”
As a quasi-Mamou native, since I was a child, the courir has always been presented as something spiritual—a cultural rite of passage, a duty, even. As a woman and a poor horseman though, Eunice’s Courir de Mardi Gras—open to all genders, as well as to trailers, and those who prefer a many-mile walk on foot—was where my friends and I found our Fat Tuesday home for a few precious years.
[Read this: The Mamou Insider—Your exclusive guide to Mamou Mardi Gars]
The eight-hour day begins at the crack of dawn, as does the cracking-open of cans. Donned from head-to-toe in the traditional vibrant scraps, with our obligatory cone hats and screen masks in hand (you don’t have to wear them the whole time, though many people do), we’d hop onto our trailers, greeting the motley group of family and friends who’d signed up for the journey. Unfailingly among them are a handful of beloved foreigners, sometimes over-excitedly tossing back jello shots—or worse, whiskey—before 10 am. We’d shake our heads. This is no sprint, you poor fools.
How could you have ever gone a day—in that past life of yours—wearing anything but this animated suit of scrappy, rainbowed fringe so perfectly designed for dancing?
In a flurry of fringe, the “parade” of sorts stretches miles long—consisting mostly of pick-up trucks pulling glorified hay trailers and the occasional schoolbus—sparkling with sequined fabric and shining wrapping paper, elaborate hand-made decorations updated year after year.
On the one courir we decided to host our own trailer—a weekend blurred by street dance after hungover gumbo after streetdance—we made the mistake of waiting until the morning of to decorate our meager steed. We arrived late, of course, and with thirty minutes to spare, slapped cheap wrapping paper (which tore a half-mile in) and taped up beads along the sides. By the time we met the cheering crowds of Downtown Eunice that afternoon (last in line—remember, we were late), we had all abandoned the now-naked trailer and scattered into the street, refusing to claim it as our own, instead surrendering to the sounds of Steve Riley’s “La Danse de Mardi Gras” calling us from the town square.
—Jordan LaHaye
Society of St. Anne
New Orleans
Though it’s never an accident to end up in New Orleans on Mardi Gras, I found myself at Bud Rip’s Bar in the Bywater watching the sun come up on that Tuesday in 2019, feeling very much like I had ended up there on accident. My friend Mandi had been up late the night before, sewing hand-fashioned cloth shrimp onto a silver cape, and she was now a glorious Shrimp Queen. I had been traveling, so I hadn’t had much time to come up with a costume. Admittedly, I thought the Saint Anne Parade was just another event where people on floats throw stuff and you catch it. My error became apparent when I saw my friend round the corner, wearing a white dress—the “rice”— bedazzled with thousands of hot-glued red beans and a headdress featuring three upright forks. Another buddy had green face paint and a cape adorned with felt cabbages. Someone else had become a decadent pink cake. Another gal appeared to be cotton candy. I was...myself. I quickly dug around in my backpack, searching for some kind of food to glue to myself.
“Here,” I said, pulling an unidentifiable nut out of my bag that I had picked up on a hike a few months before. “I can be a nut.” A friend helped me tape it dead in the middle of my sunglasses.
I got a drink from Bud Rip’s and wondered when the parade was going to start. Now, as anyone who has attended the Saint Anne parade knows—but what I had yet to learn—the parade doesn’t come. It slowly dawned on me that we, along with the now-thousands of other people dressed as food on Piety Street, were the parade. And we were going to walk from the Bywater through the Marigny and on to the French Quarter.
[Read this: In the Pink—The origins of the Spanish Town Parade]
At some point, we all gathered around Mandi’s friend’s shopping cart filled with pasta salad and booze and started ambling forward, following all the other staggering anthropomorphic foods. There is no traditional separation of parade and onlookers at the Saint Anne Parade. Everyone is the parade, everyone is the onlookers, and that year, everyone was also food.
It slowly dawned on me that we, along with the now-thousands of other people dressed as food on Piety Street, were the parade.
Walking along, a guy dressed as a watermelon doled out a plate of king cake slices to all who passed his driveway. A trio of grinning folks in medical scrubs stood behind a fold-out table filled with tiny white cups, handing out shots of liquor. It’s easy to get lost in this mess, but thanks to our group’s long stick with a balloon tied on top, we always found our way back. There were long periods of time where the parade didn’t move an inch, where we made new friends and were nearly swallowed by the tides of New Orleans’ watery potholes.
By the time we made it to the Quarter, it felt like we were a ship of weary invaders breaching the shores of a resort beach. The tourists in Jackson Square probably had no idea where we came from, what we’d been through, or why we presented as tired food. Had they asked, I would have told them that if they ever went to the Saint Anne Parade, they should wear a costume.
—Christie Matherne Hall