It’s that time of year again when Carnival revelers hit the streets throughout the Greater New Orleans area and Northshore to catch their favorite parades and to shout themselves hoarse. Of course, that’s nothing new. Back in the mid-1800s, New Orleanians did the same thing, as seen here at the Mistick Krewe of Comus’s night parade in 1858. At the time, Comus was little more than a year old.
Until 1857, Carnival in New Orleans was pretty much a Creole Catholic event celebrated before Lent with evening balls and an occasional procession through the French Quarter. Then came Protestant Americans. Not to be outdone, they formed their own Carnival organization in 1856 when, according to Mardi Gras historian Henri Schindler, six American young men originally from Mobile formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus, named for John Milton’s “Masque of Comus” and the Greek god of revelry. The Mobile six had been members of that city’s parading group the Cowbellions and that’s what they had in mind for New Orleans. By the way, “Krewe” and “Mistick” were faux spellings supposedly based on Old English forms of the words crew and mystic.
With an outpouring response from the city’s Uptown community, Comus held its first Mardi Gras parade in February 1857 with the fitting theme “The Demon Actors in Milton’s Paradise Lost.” It was an “instant sensation,” says Mardi Gras historian Arthur Hardy. Not everyone was impressed, however. The parade and evening tableau ball were held on the American, or Uptown, side of Canal Street. And, as Schindler wrote, “the new organization did not count a single Creole among its members.” Although a prominent Creole newspaper gave only a brief but sarcastic mention to the parade and ball, Schindler says “Carnival was forever changed.”
And what a change it was, considering how rowdy Mardi Gras had been prior to the formation of Comus. A horrified young North Carolinian living in New Orleans in 1853 confided to his journal the “profanation” spectacle he had just witnessed.
“The street was full of men, women and children of the lower classes on foot and the higher in carriages,” he wrote. “As I walked down the street, I was met by a crowd of boys and men fantastically dressed and masked running with a crowd at their heels who were hollering and yelling and filling the air with flour, eggs, and mud which they were throwing at the maskers who in turn filled the eyes of all with whom they came in contact with flour – I got out of the way, least they should give me some of their favors in the liberal distribution.”
After a lengthy description of the day’s events, he concluded: “The whole street was alive with spectators and the scene to me was certainly strange and as a hideous or foolish looking masker would pass me and the horrid oaths and noises fell upon my ears, I could not help exclaim – Is this festival recognized by the Church of Rome? Can any Christian Church countenance much less allow such a profanation of its ceremonies?”
Comus did indeed change Carnival forever. The parade fever caught on quickly. After Comus, came the Twelfth Night Revelers in 1870, Rex and Momus in 1872, and Proteus in 1882. That was just a start. Over the last century carnival organizations and marching clubs have come and gone. While several of the old line krewes still delight paradegoers, more recent organizations such as Bacchus, Endymion and Zulu also have become favorites with locals and visitors from across the world.
