Cajun-Style Mardi Gras in Mamou

The Cajun farmer grinned as he stood on his roof clutching a flapping chicken’s feet. Masked Mardi Gras riders in flowing capes and conical hats charged into his yard.

“Throw it, throw it!” they yelled, as a wagonful of musicians struck up a lusty Cajun tune.

Some riders stood precariously on their horses, swaying to the foot-stomping music. Others leaped off and scrambled alongside the frame house, dancing with outstretched arms. “Throw it!”

The farmer did. But to the delight of the merry riders, the squawking chicken escaped and the chase was on. Spectators laughed and popped beers. Dozens of crazily dressed young men tumbled over each other in wild pursuit of the frantic chicken as it scurried through bushes onto a field.

Suddenly, a rider costumed as the devil took a do-or-die dive. “Got it!” He held his bounty high.

“T’es pas unbebe!” (You’re no baby, in Cajun French) yelled the Mardi Gras capitaine , as he trotted to the devil to claim the chicken. Then he raised his white flag and blew his cow horn, the signal to move on. The 140 Mardi Gras riders obeyed the command and rode down the country road to another farmer’s house.

Like Forefathers

“This is the way we’ve always run Mardi Gras,” boasted Paul Tate Jr., president of the Mardi Gras Assn. in Mamou, a small town 50 miles northwest of Lafayette on Louisiana 13.

“We celebrate Mardi Gras like our forefathers did. Our band of masked riders roam the countryside asking for contributions for a communal gumbo served back in Mamou at the end of the day. We prefer chicken, but onions, rice, sausage, flour, ducks--even a few dollars--are just fine.”

Mardi Gras in rural southwestern Louisiana is known as the Country Mardi Gras. Cajun towns such as Church Point, Soileau, Lange Megge, Swords and Basile have them. But the one out of Mamou is the oldest, most traditional and best organized.

Cajuns are descendants of French farmers. Their forebears were expelled by the British from Acadia (now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in 1755. For years they wandered the Atlantic seaboard, eventually settling in Louisiana. Isolated well into the 20th Century from the mainstream of American development, Cajuns clung to their language and culture, developing their own cuisine, architecture, crafts and music.

Country Mardi Gras distinctively differs from Mardi Gras carnivals in Rio de Janeiro, Nice, Quebec, New Orleans and even Lafayette, the hub city of Louisiana’s Cajun country.

For one thing, there are no parades, floats, kings, queens or balls. Also, Country Mardi Gras is not glittery, glamorous, commercial or expensive. (In Lafayette, for example, the elaborate costume for just one Mardi Gras king or queen easily runs $10,000.)

Country Mardi Gras is called the Courir de Mardi Gras, the Mardi Gras run. In Mamou it’s an all-day festival the Tuesday before Lent. It’s filled with mischievous horseplay, boundless good humor, non-stop Cajun music, caldrons of steaming gumbo, street dancing, make-your-own costumes and barrels of beer.

The Courir de Mardi Gras has roots in medieval time when ceremonial begging celebrations featured performances in anticipation of a donation. Country Mardi Gras participants, in turn, dance and sing for their gumbo ingredients.

Courir de Mardi Gras costumes are often parodies of medieval social classes. Conical hats parody nobility, miters parody clergy and mortarboards parody scholars. False collars and ostentatious harlequin costumes add medieval flavor. Then, of course, there are the other costumes--clowns, spacemen, monsters and wild, nondescript creations.

Cajun musicians who follow the Mardi Gras run more or less resemble medieval royal jesters. Just as royal jesters never participated directly in the merrymaking, the Mardi Gras musicians never leave their wagon.

In the 19th and early 20th Century the Courir de Mardi Gras was celebrated in much of rural French Louisiana, but the modernizing effect of new schools and churches and the “Americanization” of Cajun culture eventually led to its demise.

Also, in many places, the run had become unruly and dangerous. Scores were often settled on this day with bare fists, knives and even pistols.

Revive Tradition

In 1950 Paul C. Tate undertook to revive the traditional Mardi Gras run in Mamou. But unlike the old days, when the bawdy affair often erupted into drunken fights, today’s Mardi Gras run is under the iron hand of le capitaine , a man with absolute control over his riders’ behavior.

Any male 16 or over can participate if he wears a costume and mask, pays the $8 fee and bears no weapons. Those without horses ride in tractor-drawn wagons. Beer and food along the way are free, as is the gumbo at the end of the day.

Mardi Gras participants gather at Mamou’s American Legion Home on Main Street around 6:30 a.m. From the time le capitaine reads the run’s rules to the reentry into town later that day, his word is law. All riders who make the run accept that tacit agreement. That is, about 200 males willingly submit to the authority of a chosen leader whose sole role is to act as intermediary between the madness of the run and the outside world.

Jasper J. Manuel, a 50-year-old car salesman and part-time deputy sheriff for Evangline Parish (county), was chosen capitaine of the Mamou Courir in 1972. He will serve as long as he can ride a horse.

Capt. Manuel does not wear a mask, nor do his seven co-captains. They’re responsible for order; they want to be recognized. All wear cowboy hats and capes of gold and purple or gold and green. A white flag and bullhorn distinguish Manuel from his co-captains.

Captains don’t drink during the run. “We have to be good boys on that day,” Manuel chuckled. But the troops have plenty of beer. During the run, a truck with 120 cases of beer and another truck with more than 400 hard-boiled eggs and hundreds of pounds of boudin (spicy Cajun rice and pork sausage) follow the celebrants.

At mid-morning they take a break to eat the eggs and around noon they eat the boudin . “Eggs and boudin help absorb the alcohol,” Manuel maintained.

The advance route of the run is secret. It is le capitaine’s decision; not even the Mamou Mardi Gras organizers know just where le capitaine will lead his masked riders. The run is about 16 miles and usually gets under way between 7:30 and 8 a.m. and returns to town around 3 p.m.

Along the way, le capitaine choses about 30 farmhouses to “beg” for chickens. “I plan my route ahead of time,” Manuel said, “but don’t decide where to stop until I’m on the road.”

Raised White Flag

Le Capitaine stops his revelers at some distance from a house and approaches alone with a raised white flag. “Voulez-vous recevoir cette bande de Mardi Gras?” (Do you wish to receive this Mardi Gras troop?) he asks the family.

If the answer is “Oui, M’sieu,” le capitaine lowers his flag to signal the invitation to charge the house. The riders thunder into the yard, dismount, clown, dance, sing and generally faire le macaque (make monkeyshines).

As le capitaine collects chickens or whatever for the gumbo, he sends back the bounty to Mamou. Naturally, what is collected would never be enough to feed his troop. “Beforehand, we buy three crates of chickens for that gumbo,”Manuel said. “Women spend all day brewing it at the American Legion Home. We usually feed about 4,000 people.”

By mid-afternoon, horses and riders are weary and ragged as they approach Mamou. Le capitaine orders a stop just outside the town to regroup and regain a certain composure for the triumphant reentry.

They ride two by two down the crowded main street (6th Street) in haughty silence to the tune of the Mardi Gras song, deigning now and then to wave to admiring spectators.

After they dismount, they dance in the street for an hour or so and then walk to the American Legion Home to devour all the gumbo they want. The public is served after Mardi Gras participants are satisfied. The gumbo is great and costs only $2 for a huge bowl.

Accommodations in Mamou are limited (two motels and a hotel), so most visitors stay in Lafayette. It’s best to arrive in town about 7 a.m., but don’t fret if you arrive late. Someone at the American Legion Home will tell you in what direction the run took off. The area is flat and roads are straight. Before long, you’re bound to find the dallying run.

Some visitors try to follow the run for two or three hours and then return to Mamou to bar hop and dance on the main street to live Cajun music.

At 5 p.m. there’s a Mardi Gras dance at the American Legion Home. Everyone’s welcome, costume or not. Entrance is $3 a person, $5 a couple. About 9:30 p.m. there’s a best-costumes contest. Judges, not from Mamou, are chosen on the spot from the audience. At the stroke of midnight, Mardi Gras ends. Ash Wednesday has arrived; Lent begins. The party’s over.

It is time for Jasper Manuel to claim again that how Mamou runs Mardi Gras is the only true way. “Those big cities--New Orleans, Lafayette--they don’t have Mardi Gras,” he insists. “They have parades. I can see parades on television. Parades is parades. Mardi Gras is Mardi Gras.”

For accommodations in Lafayette, information on Lafayette’s Mardi Gras celebrations and parades and schedules of Country Mardi Gras runs, contact the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission, P.O. Box 52066, Lafayette, La. 70505, or phone (318) 232-3737.)