A Quick History of Carnival

Hi all,

Here in Rio, today is the final official day of Carnaval (rendered as “Carnival” in English). However, festivities will continue through Saturday, when the top 5 samba “schools” (clubs) will parade again through the Sambodromo (which is a word I still cannot wrap my tongue around – it’s “samba” + “drome”, but good luck saying it like a Carioca).

While everyone has heard of Carnaval, and knows that Rio has a huge Carnaval celebration, probably few know the origins of the festivities.

Carnaval dates back hundreds of years. Wikipdia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_Carnival) says that the Rio Carnaval began in 1641, but there were Carnaval celebrations in Europe – particularly in Paris and Venice – long before.

The origins of Carnaval, as with most of our modern holidays, lie in religious celebrations. (The very word “holiday” derives from the words “holy day”.) The 40 days before Easter are known as Lent. Traditionally, Catholics and other conservative Christians forswore the eating of meat during this period. There were accordingly feasts immediately before Lent began, and these were the origins of our Carnaval celebrations of today – which have admittedly morphed a bit and wouldn’t be considered by most folks to be overly religious in nature.

Incidentally, Mardi Gras and Quebec City’s winter celebration are at heart the same festival. They may be celebrated in cold weather instead of the scorching heat of Rio here in the southern hemisphere (where temperatures have been hitting 40 C /104 F many days recently), and the festivities may be a bit different, but their origins are the same.

So is “Carnaval” a day, or a period of time, and if so, how many days? That would depend on where you are and whom you ask. Here, it’s more or less the 5 days culminating on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which begins Lent. But as I said, festivities here continue through the following Saturday or until you can’t drink and dance any more.

Carnaval has been celebrated in different ways down the centuries, but parties and excess have been mainstays. The wearing of masks may have begun in Venice, so that people of all levels of society could mix and mingle, sometimes sexually, with relative anonymity. This custom persists today. Many people here in Rio and elsewhere in Brazil wear masks or costumes, and the guys try to steal kisses from the girls in the parades – sometimes aggressively.

Aside from Rio, the other big Carnaval city in Brazil is Salvador, in Bahia. I have attended Carnaval there twice and actually enjoyed it more. There you’ll find more energetic music: samba, axê (pronounced kind of like “ah-SHEH”), and MPB (Brazilian pop music). In Rio the music is more traditional, but often a bit sappy, and often the same song will be repeated over and over ad nauseum. But you don’t go to the parades just for the music!

You go for the overall experience, and Carnaval is something to experience at least once. Come on down!

If you are interested in coming to Carnaval next year, contact me and I’ll help you make arrangements.

Next: I am working on that video from the bloco das Carmelitas. Promise to have it up soon! They had a great “batteria”, or drum and percussion section.

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