How did Mardi Gras on Dec. 25 originate?

Mardi Gras originated as a ceremony to welcome the New Year for the ancient Romans and Greeks. In the Middle Ages, Catholicism, which wanted to suppress all pagan ideas, failed to do away with Mardi Gras and incorporated it into its own annual calendar, Thanksgiving Day. In Europe, especially Portugal, people celebrated by throwing up their companions and dancing in the streets wearing masks. Portugal later brought the tradition to the colony of Brazil. However, some believe that Brazilian Carnival is different from traditional Carnival, and may have originated from the worship of native cultures by black Africans in Brazil, while others believe it may be a mixture of both African and Iberian cultures.

Originally, during the three days leading up to Ash Wednesday (SENZAS), which is the equivalent of the last Wednesday of February in the Gregorian calendar, people flooded the streets wearing masks and threw rotten eggs, flour and nasty-tasting water at each other. The Portuguese were already fond of this kind of mischief, and local black slaves in Brazil also took part, whitening their faces with flour, borrowing old clothes and hairpieces from their masters, and playing madly for three days. Many slave owners also gave their slaves three days of freedom. They thanked their masters for their kindness and generally did not take the opportunity to escape.

One woman changed Mardi Gras

On Jan. 22, 1840, the owner of this Italian hotel distributed invitations, hired musicians, decorated the hotel with ribbons and prepared confetti, and a large crowd arrived to dance the polka, a style of dancing that was fashionable in the New World and which lasted until 1846. At that time from Europe just returned to the artist CLARA DEL MASTRO (CLARA DEL MASTRO) with a group of theater actors, they held in a theater at that time Italy is very parade masquerade ball. Later, people liked this way, have in other theaters to follow suit. A few years later, the masquerade is more and more popular, at first also stood on the side of the rich and powerful people also joined the ranks of the masquerade dancers. Street pranks have since disappeared. An advertisement for the ball in 1879 reads: Morning ball 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., accompanied by a symphony orchestra, tickets R$1,000 per person (REIS), afternoon 5-9 p.m. in George Square (GEORGEOUS SQUARE), and the evening 9 p.m. to dawn the next day.

Cross-racial, cross-class cultural fusion

African agogo drums and the metal percussion instruments favored by black Brazilians were used for the first time at the NINICHES club's costume party. Later, the local blacksmiths and quarrymen came up with a successful masquerade character, a masked man with a large African drum and a small eight-pointed beard, who was full of enthusiasm, warmth and generosity, and became a much-loved image, which is known as "ZE PEREIRA uncle" (ZE PEREIRA), in fact, uncle represents the mood of the joyful Brazilian people in the festivals. ZE PEREIRA's song quickly spread throughout the country and became the representative song of the Brazilian Carnival. The lyrics are to the effect: "You're a good-hearted man, long live Zepeleira! Let's get drunk for today's Carnival, Viva!" Carnival began as a major Catholic holiday, usually held in mid- to late February for three days each year, and has been changed to a four-day national **** vacation starting on Saturday, Saturday, Sunday, and the following Monday and Tuesday. For more than a hundred years, the Brazilian carnival absorbed the music and dance of the blacks and other content, gradually by the farce, the upper class luxury masquerade, turned into a whole society of all strata *** with the participation of *** with the sharing of the lively, lively celebrations. Its original religious atmosphere has been diluted. It has become a traditional festival unique to Brazil, a folk festival. Today's Brazilians have divided the year into "before" and "after" these two time periods, which is similar to the Chinese Lunar New Year on the Chinese people's influence.