Goddess Roots of Mardi Gras in New Orleans

With Mardi Gras just around the corner I thought I'd share an excerpt from my first published book, Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations.  You see, I lived the first thirty years of my life in New Orleans without a clue about the Pagan and Goddess roots of Mardi Gras.  When you live in that Christian bubble, you tend not look beyond it, but then when you do, a tsunami of awakening might be the result, as it was for me.....

Vieux Carre
The essence of Goddess, as a celebration of life, holds sway in New Orleans at the very core of the people, even if they're unaware of it.  Life there moves at a slower pace and New Orleanians see no reason to catch up. It is a city proud of its diverse cultural and ethnic heritage, where people look for just about any excuse to indulge in the pleasures of food, drink, and partying. There is a sense of life being a bit more in-sync with the natural rhythms and life’s simple pleasures. Despite the influence of the Catholic Church, the lifestyle in New Orleans is hardly dogmatic or puritanical. In the Big Easy, as the city is often called, the spirit of the Feminine is also reflected in the Old World charm of the architecture in the Vieux Carre, in celebrations such as Mardi Gras with its pagan roots dating back to the rituals of the Lupercalia, Cybele and Attis, and in the worship of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and various goddesses in the Yoruban pantheon.

Goddess lives in the steamy heat of the city whose motto is “let the good times roll,” and where Stella’s raw sexuality in the story A Streetcar Named Desire exploded onto the screen. Goddess is alive in the women who gather at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on the fringe of the Vieux Carre (or French Quarter) to say their rosary and pray the novena for their families. Her spirit lives in the flora and fauna of the dense bayous, the groves of oak trees where the Spanish moss grows, and in the luscious and heady scent of the exquisite flowers of the magnolia tree. It might even be said she lives in the strength and determination at the core of the Southern Woman who might sit ladylike in her finery on the verandah sipping a Mint Julep one day and be found pulling up crab traps wearing her old blue jeans the next.

Goddess lives in the rituals of the Catholic Church which assimilated that what it could not stamp out. She is an embodiment of life’s earthy pleasures, and nowhere in the United States does she manifest her robust essence with such fun and flair as in her many faces that peak from behind her carnival masque in the Vieux Carre of New Orleans. Author Samuel Kinser cites the carnival origins as starting in the urban and country reaction to strict Lenten rules and a groundswell of interest in a variety of social and agricultural practices in pre-Christian Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, and Roman sun, wind, and water worship. On the other hand, Henri Schindler, a local author in New Orleans and an expert on Mardi Gras, believes the carnival season in New Orleans has its origins in spring rites of the Greek and Latin world, namely the two celebrations of the Lupercalia and those of the Goddess Cybele and her consort Attis.

The ecstatic festival of the Lupercalia, held on February 15th, was associated with Romulus and Remus, said to be the founders of Rome, who had been suckled by a She Wolf (a metaphor for Mother Nature ?) when they were infants. During the Roman festival dogs and goats were sacrificed in a cave at the foot of Palatine Hill and the meat consumed. Some of the animal’s skin was turned into whips, and its blood used to ritually paint the priests and youths who were then wiped with wool dipped in milk, the nourishing fluid from the Mother. During the celebration priests chased naked men and women around the Palatine Hill of Rome and through the streets of other towns where the celebration was held, lashing out at them with whips, with the intention, according to Schindler, of forgiving them of their sins. We are reminded of self-flagellation as a penance for sin.

Other sources say women sought out the priests, thinking their touch from the bloody thong would cure them of barrenness in a form of fertility magic. Schindler states the sacramental strips of the whip were called Februa, so it might be a good time to mention Mardi Gras, like Lupercalia, is usually held in February! When there were not enough priests to perform the rituals, laypersons took over the duties and flayed themselves until they felt purified. It is no coincidence Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, is the culmination of the carnival season, followed the next day by Ash Wednesday and the beginning of 40 days of Lent, when Catholics fast and pray and ask forgiveness of their sins. Lent then ends with the celebration of Easter, which marks the resurrection of Jesus, (the last dying and rising god ?) who died and arose for the sins of humankind. It was at Lupercalia, that Antony, the consul at Lupercus, offered a royal diadem to Caesar in 44 BCE. The festival of Lupercalia survived until at least 494 CE when the Bishop of Rome banned the rite and absorbed it into the Feast of Purification for the Virgin.

The Church was not happy with these celebrations, but they could not quash the traditions. In the 5th century some control was managed when they adapted the celebration and veiled it in Christian significance, renaming it Carnelevamen, a “consolation of the flesh,” which came to be called carnival. In 600 CE, Pope Gregory officially set the often fluctuating date for Easter (which celebrates the resurrection of Christ) at the first Sunday following the Vernal Equinox. Thus the Christian celebration of Easter, (also the time of the more ancient Goddess Aostara rituals) would for all time overlay the spring rites of Cybele and Attis, Ishtar and Tammuz, and the Druids. Also it must be remembered that this time was set aside for the aforementioned more ancient Goddess Aostara rituals. Eventually the ancient rituals to appease the gods and ask their forgiveness on a seasonal basis gave way to daily services on altars often without personal interaction by the masses. As Shindler puts it, mirth became taboo.

Long story short, carnival came to New Orleans with the French. New Orleans was founded in 1718 and the first Mardi Gras parade was held in 1837. The parade and masqued ball was a theatre-like performance meant for entertaining the members of the carnival club and was usually based on a particular theme drawn from mythology or history. The very first theme in North America portrayed Demon Actors from Milton’s Paradise Lost with Persephone, the Fates, Furies, Gorgons, and Isis all making their acting debut in the New World. Parade themes such as Egyptian Theology have produced floats representing ideas of temples, tombs, palaces, pleasure, sacred animals, and resurrection. Since then, masked groups, called “krewes,” wearing very androgynous looking costumes, have looked to the Feminine for inspiration as their organizations have taken the names of Pandora, Aphrodite, Diana, Isis, Rhea, Diana, Ishtar, Juno, Hestia, Nemesis, Hebe, Hera, Helena, Oshun, and Cleopatra. Obviously one of the carnival krewes of Mardi Gras did their homework because the Krewe of Babylon has as its Captain, King Sargon, the namesake of Ishtar’s royal father.

Oddly enough, New Orleans may even have some Egyptian connections – and we certainly know Egypt influenced Greece and Rome! According to scholar, R. E. Witt, “the carnival of medieval and modern times is the obvious successor of the Navigium Isidis,” an ancient festival that began in Egypt, but in time with the spread of Isis’ worship, began to be practiced throughout the Greco Roman world. In this festival, which included cross dressing, processions, and all manner of hilarity, music, and revelry, a ship laden with gifts being offered to the Goddess Isis was launched upon the waters in exchange for her blessings for anyone dependent on the waters and sailing season.

It should be noted in the fishing villages south of New Orleans an annual Blessing of the Fleets is performed by Christian clergy for safety and abundance of the fisherman and their ships. This is an obvious remnant of the Isidis Navigium festival of ancient times. Witt also cites the Christian Feast of Lights or Epiphany with roots in the rituals of the priests of Isis. Interestingly, the Feast of the Epiphany, on January 6th is also known as Kings Day in New Orleans and it is the kick-off of the carnival season in “the city that care forgot.” Beginning on Kings Day, New Orleanians begin a series of King Cake parties. Within the cake is a plastic doll. The person getting the piece of cake with the doll hidden inside is obligated to host the next party, thus the party season continues up until Mardi Gras. Neo-pagans have taken to the idea of reclaiming the tradition of the King Cake and associating it with the ancient custom of cakes, bread, or the preparation thereof, as being sacred to the Goddess. And in one last association between Goddess and January 6th, a date with so much special meaning in New Orleans, Witt cites that within Gnosticism, this is the date Aeon/Horus was born to the Goddess Isis.

Like her sister cities of New York and Miami, the Goddess is also within the New Orleans View Carre in the guise of the worship of the Yoruban goddesses of Voodoo spirituality. Religion scholars who track such things cite the Yoruban deities being worshiped more in the New World than in the Old whence they came. While some believe shops selling voodoo dolls are just for the tourists (some are!), there is a thriving community here that seriously worships the Goddesses Yemaya, Oshun, and Oya. The Voodoo Temple run by Priestess Miriam on North Rampart Street, along the fringe of the Vieux Carre is one such example of authentic spirituality. With New Orleans and the Vieux Carre located along the crescent of the Mississippi River, the aforementioned River Goddesses are right at home and their serious practitioners make an attempt to dispel misconceptions and teach those interested in their faith. There is an annual Voodoo Fest in New Orleans where visitors can get up close and personal with the reality of Voodoo in New ‘Awlins where practitioners are involved in a hybrid version of syncretised Christian and Yoruban traditions. There is also a Neo-Pagan community actively involved in Goddess Spirituality, while others venerate the Feminine Divine in the guise of the Virgin and Our Lady of Guadalupe, the latter having a church honoring her on the outskirts of the Vieux Carre.

When coming to New Orleans during Mardi Gras, the most expensive time to visit for airfare and hotels, remember the parades begin about seven days prior to Fat Tuesday, culminating with Rex and Comos, the oldest clubs hitting the streets on Mardi Gras day and night. The larger, more elaborate parades are the weekend prior to Fat Tuesday. Scoring an invitation to a masqued ball is quite difficult unless you have some local connections. And remember, when that dubloon comes your way from the masqued rider on that float (like the one in the picture above from the Isis parade)  let it drop to the ground, step on it, and when the crush of the crowd eases off, then bend over and pick it up! And remember to yell, “Throw Me Somethin’ Mister.”  as the riders of the passing floats because Mardi Gras is not about waving to the pretty girls sitting on the back of convertibles. It is about how much loot you can grab, then going to Bourbon Street, having a drink and eating a good meal. Sacred pleasures! Just do not forget your mask!