MARDI GRAS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26229, 13 August 1946, Page 4

MARDI GRAS

A DAY OF MERRYMAKING A correspondent of the Daily Times expresses surprise that included in the proposed Otago centennial celebrations there should be a “ Mardi Gras in the city.” He has always, he says, understood a Mardi Gras to refer to Shrove Tuesday, the day on which in olden times church people had a feast prior to the fasting period of Lent, and for that reason he does not consider it is applicable to centennial celebrations. A Mardi Gras in the city merely means a festival in the city. Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, is Shrovetide, or “ Shriving-time," the name given to the days immediately preceding Ash Wednesday, which, as indeed the whole period after Septuagesima Sunday appears to have been, were anciently days of preparations for the penitential time of Lent. In the modern discipline of the Roman Catholic Church a trace of this is still preserved, as in many countries the time of the confession, with the Paschal, or Easter Communion, commences from Shrovetide. Thesfe days were sometimes called Fasting-tide, Fastmass, Fasten-e’en, or Fastem’se’en, nfimes still retained in some parts of Great Britain. The name of Shrovetide was retained in England after the Reformation, although the practice of shriving was abandoned. The duty of confession, having been fulfilled, the faithful, upon the eve of entering upon the Lent, were indulged with permission to give themselves up to amusements and to festive celebrations, of which the counterpart is seen in the Continental carnival. In England the pastimes of football, cock-fighting, bull-baiting, etc., were long recognised usages of Shrovetide, and the festive banquets of the day are still represented by the pancakes and fritters from which Pancake Tuesday took its name. Shrovetide cakes and ale, the last surviving relic of Shrove Tuesday celebrations. were discontinued by Brasenose College in 1887. The Mardi Gras of the French, with its merry-makings, is Shrove Tuesday It is a popular festival in New Orleans, and in New Zealand a mixed day of merry-making and sporting events, is now commonly known as a Mardi Gras.