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Comus toasts Rex during its 1988 parade, three years before the Mistick Krewe of Comus stopped parading. Comus launched a slew of Mardi Gras traditions when it became the first Carnival organization in 1857.
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Photo by David Richmond
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Hey Blake,
I know we have a bunch of Mardi Gras organizations called "krewes." But
what I don't know is where this word came from. Can you tell me?
--
Mardi Gras Maniac
Dear Maniac,
The word with its unusual spelling was first used in 1857 by the
Mistick Krewe of Comus (MKC), when they formed the first Carnival organization
and laid the foundation for Mardi Gras as we know it today. Here's what brought
it all about.
In the early days, Mardi Gras was a splendid holiday in the Crescent City, but by the 1850s, the behavior of many of the citizens caused great concern. The streets were full of ruffians, thugs, hooligans and ladies of ill repute. Gangs feuded, muggings were common, and the riffraff threw not only flour on the street maskers, but lime and bricks as well.
This licentious behavior prompted the newspapers
to call for an end to the drunken chaos. The press called the miscreants "a God-forsaken, man-forsaken set" and declared that Mardi Gras had become "vulgar, tasteless, and spiritless." One
paper -- L'Abeille -- blamed the newcomers to the city.
Uptown, in John Pope's apothecary at the
intersection of Jackson and Prytania streets, a group of gentlemen -- American
merchant
and professional types -- gathered regularly to discuss the issues of the
day, one of which was the sorry state of Carnival. The men -- who called
Pope's store "The Club" -- decided to show the Creoles that the Americans
would be the salvation of Mardi Gras, not its ruin.
Therefore, John Pope and his friends sent out an invitation to 13 others to meet at the Gem Saloon on Royal Street on Jan. 10, 1857. All were American except for one Frenchman. The group of men resolved to form a Carnival organization which grew, by Mardi Gras on Feb. 24, to the 90-member Mistick Krewe of Comus.
Being an educated crowd, they were familiar
with the poetry of Englishman John Milton. In one of his masterpieces, "A Maske Presented at Ludlow Castle," written in 1634, is a necromancer -- Comus, son of Bacchus and Circe -- who offers his guests an "Orient liquor" that brings on a "foul disfigurement." This
gave the men the idea for their insignia -- a golden goblet -- that Comus
carried in his procession and at the ball.
In the poem, "a Virgin pure" eventually triumphs, but only after Comus has delivered a lusty speech to "a
rout of Monsters headed like sundry sorts of wilde Beasts, but otherwise
like Men and Women, their Apparel glistering, who come in making a riotous
and unruly noise, with Torches in their hands."
John Pope himself suggested the name for
the organization after what Milton, in the list of "persons" at the front of his poem, called "Comus and his crew." And it was Pope who varied the spelling, calling the secret organization "Mistick" and "Krewe."
After much secret preparation, the MKC announced in newspaper notices that at nine o'clock on Mardi Gras something special would happen. And indeed it did.
Out of the night came a spectacle that would
change Carnival forever: a host of robed black men bearing flambeaux, two
small
but beautiful floats, costumed members walking beside them, and bands playing
military music. The theme of this parade was "The Demon Actors in Milton's Paradise Lost." The Daily Crescent described
the event thus: "Led by the festive Comus high on his royal set, and Satan
high on a hill blazing a mound with a pyramid and towers from diamond quarries
hewn, and rock of gold, the place of great Lucifer was followed by devils
large and devils small, devils with horns and devils with tails, and devils
without either."
For two hours, stopping only once, the parade wound through the streets to the delight and amazement of the spectators. The krewe then went to a theater where four tableaux were presented at a masked ball and then on to a banquet to complete an evening that has become a part of Mardi Gras legend.
And legend it is, because the last time Comus raised his golden goblet on the streets of New Orleans was Feb. 12, 1991. Rather than abide by a desegregation ordinance, the MKC never paraded again
