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With the fair, sometimes called a carnival, coming to Paris there will be many different events, entertainment and town traditions Paris and farther can enjoy. A fair is an Americanized form of carnival, a celebration of a township with local entertainment and traditions performed every year at a seasonal time.
In America, carnivals are usually celebrated in the summer and most don’t center around a specific religion, in other countries carnivals are celebrated around a religion or country’s history.
The origins of carnivals go farther back in time, as far as Ancient Greece. The original Greek carnival celebration was a festival in honor of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. When Greece lost its independence from Rome, the Romans adopted the tradition of celebrating Bacchus, the Roman god of wine. Even though the concept of the celebration was relatively the same, eventually the Romans added another event to celebrate, Saturnalia, a celebration to honor the god Saturn. During Saturnalia masters and slaves would trade clothes and feast with each other.
Later, while the world was slowly changing and countries, history and religion were starting to mix the carnival celibration also started to change. In the Middle Ages, the church combined the pagan carnival and the Christian carnival, into something completely different.
The church created Ludus Carnevalarii, a celebration where noble families competed in duels, joists and bullfighting against one another. After a few years of this celebration, Pope Paul II made changes to the celebration, calling it the Renaissance Carnival, which ironically had more Roman roots, like the original celebration.
The Renaissance Carnival had many competitions including racing for both animals and man. The races lasted eight days and on the final night, called Shove Tuesday, people would surge Via del Corso draped in masks, holding lit candles in the process of Festa Dei Moccoletti.
It was an event for the townspeople to “let loose” but unfortunately it usually ended in violent ways as people tried to snuff out each other’s candles any way they could. It was believed that anyone who did not hold a lit candle would die.
After centuries and centuries, Rome was no longer the center hub for Carnivals.
In the 1800’s, Venice became popular with its many carnival festivals. Throughout the years of adaptation and evolution, the events became a way for commoners to feel equal with royals and governing officials.
The carnival fashion was to wear a stylish mask, creating the effect of equality when no one could recognize each other.
In Austria, the carnival and masks were banned until the 1970s, when the tradition managed to come back.
While the tradition of carnival was banned in Venice, it didn’t stop others from bringing the event to other countries.
The Tobago Carnival, celebrated in Africa and the indigenous islands, was brought over by the European colonizers, eventually becoming its own kind of celebration. The early form of celebration had slaves burning sugar cane and stick fighting, as forms of reinforcing slavery and capitalism. The British Loyal Commission attempted to outlaw the Tobago Carnival in 1881, which created a domino effect of the Canboyla Riots and eventually the island’s newly freed citizens took the carnival into their own hands.
The Rio Carnival, one of the most popular and most recognized carnivals around the world, also has roots in colonization as well. The Rio Carnival is a slight mix between the culture of the Portuguese and the African slaves who were brought over when Portugal was colonized.
Glamorous costumes relating to the colorful nature, samba music and inspiring dances are symbols of the Rio Carnival’s culture and history within the country. While American carnivals are not traditionally like other countries’ forms of carnival, one of the most famous celebrations in America was adopted by a traveling French man. Mardi Gras, a grand celebration in New Orleans, was inspired by the French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville. In 1699, he celebrated Shove Tuesday in the area that is now New Orleans.
The tradition of Shove Tuesday eventually became one of America’s most popular celebrations.
While the evolution of carnivals have changed and been shaped in many different ways, the celebration of a carnival is still a strong tradition in all countries that celebrate it.