Carnival 2019: How we got here

FEBRUARY 20, 2019 MARDI GRAS GUIDE

Carnival 2019: How we got here

Mardi Gras, “the greatest free show on Earth,” is here again, with parades in Terrebonne and Lafourche just around the corner.

Newcomers and locals alike will find themselves in the midst of the biggest celebration of Carnival outside greater New Orleans. An estimated 40,000- 50,000 people will line the streets for Houma’s biggest parades, clamoring for beads and other trinkets tossed by float riders.

Some 30 parades are scheduled to roll through Fat Tuesday, March 5.

The annual celebration originated in the calendar of the predominate Catholic Church. It was the last opportunity among the faithful to dance, party, feast and drink, with little restraint,

Danette Bergeron, a maid in Houma’s Krewe of Aphrodite, celebrates during the krewe’s 2019 tableau Feb. 2 at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center. [TheCourier and Daily Comet/File]

before the restrictions of the 40-day Lenten season that starts on Ash Wednesday and ends with Easter.

The local Carnival tradition has roots well into the 1800s, when masked balls were common. Parades are mentioned in Houma and Thibodaux newspapers before the 1920s. In 1946, a group of Houma men planned the first parade of the Krewe of Houmas, which rolled on

Fat Tuesday 1947. In the years since, a succession of krewes joined the celebration.

That 1947 parade featured a convertible bearing farmer Filhuacon “Tecon” Duplantis, whose irregular homemade parades, beginning in the 1920s, were credited with keeping the tradition alive. Tecon’s unofficial assemblies of decorated cane wagons and farm animals are not well documented,

but they reportedly grew from a few people on foot to some 200 floats drawn by oxen and horses.

In 1955, the Krewe of Chronos of Thibodaux, launched its first modern parade, with a nod to the very first Thibodaux parade, reportedly in 1914, though that date has not been firmly established.

Tableaus, elaborate balls where krewes introduce their royalty, began earlier this month and will continue through Mardi Gras. But the celebration really kicks into high gear when the Krewe of Hercules hits the streets of Houma, this year on Feb. 22. Get ready, Houma-Thibodaux. Carnival 2019 is about to get loud.

Local Parade Schedule

Feb. 17: Des Petite Lions children’s parade, 1 p.m., Golden Meadow. Feb. 22: Hercules, 6 p.m., Houma. Feb. 23: Tee Caillou, noon, Chauvin; Aquarius, 6:30 p.m., Houma; Le Krewe of Des T. Cajuns, noon, Larose. Feb. 24: Hyacinthians, noon, Houma, followed

by Titans; Versailles, noon, Larose; Shaka, 1:30 p.m., Thibodaux, followed by Ambrosia, 2 p.m. March 1: Aphrodite, 6:30 p.m., Houma; Athena, 7 p.m., Golden Meadow. March 2: Mardi Gras, 6:30 p.m., Houma; Apollo, noon, Lockport; Bon Temps, 6:30 p.m.,

Larose; Atlantis, noon, Golden Meadow. March 3: Terreanians, 12:30 p.m., Houma; Montegut Children’s Parade, 2 p.m., Montegut; Cleophas, 12:30 p.m., Thibodaux, followed by Chronos at 1:30 p.m.; Nereids, 6 p.m., Golden Meadow. March 4: Cleopatra, 6:30 p.m., Houma.

March 5: Bonne Terre, 11 a.m., Montegut; Gheens, 11 a.m., Gheens; Houmas, noon, Houma, followed by Kajuns; Choupic, 1 p.m., Chackbay; Ghana, 1 p.m., Thibodaux; Neptune, noon, Golden Meadow.