VINTAGE
BY JO HN R . KE MP
1893
F
rom 1872 to 1900, the Rex organization – as did the Mystic “This was the height of the Golden Age of Carnival,” says Hales, “and Krewe of Comus for a short time years earlier – carried Rex and other organizations filled the streets with ever more elaborate and on the ancient French tradition of featuring a live Boeuf sophisticated parades. Somehow a live ox (let alone Old Jeff) in a wagon, Gras, or fatted ox, in its annual Mardi Gras procession. even if it represented a significant traditional link to the beginnings of It marked the last day meat could be eaten before Ash Carnival, just didn’t fit in anymore.” Wednesday and Lent. In 1959 Rex returned the Boeuf Gras to its parade line up, not as a live As seen in this colorful lithograph published in the New Orleans “Daily animal but with a papier-mâché bull, which Hales describes as looking Picayune” on Mardi Gras Day, 1893, Rex revelers, dressed as butchers, more like “El Toro than a stately symbol of an ancient tradition.” But even paraded a live ox atop a float as if leading it to slaughter and that has changed over the years. Rex’s Boeuf Gras the main course at that night’s feast ending carnival. The gesture “Today’s Boeuf Gras,” says Hales, who reigned as Rex in 2017, Float, Mardi Gras 1893. was often more symbolic than an actual roast-beef-on-hoof “is massive, garlanded and surrounded by white-coated chefs. This Courtesy of Dr. dinner. Rex often paraded Old Jeff, a bull borrowed from a local traditional symbol seems secure and would surely be recognized by Stephen Hales anyone familiar with the symbolism and imagery of early Carnival. stockyard. On other occasions, says Rex archivist and historian The connection through centuries of Carnival celebrations represented by Stephen Hales, newspapers advertised “choice cuts from the boeuf gras” this one symbol, the ancient figure of the Boeuf Gras, adds to the beauty could be purchased at local butcher shops. Mardi Gras 1900 was the last of the tradition carried on in New Orleans each year.” time Rex included a live ox.
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