Courier de Mardi Gras Mask
by Seaux-N-Seau Soileau
Title
Courier de Mardi Gras Mask
Artist
Seaux-N-Seau Soileau
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
I was a young teenager when my grandmother taught me to make screen mask for the Courir de Mardi Gras. She was born over 130 years ago. She told me her mother taught her the craft and likely she too learned it from her mother or grandmother. We began with screen, fabric, and an antique treddle style sewing machine. My lack of experience peddling the old machine caused the needle to break. My grandmother suggested that I walk to the store to buy another needle but I was too busy designing thousands of different mask in my mind. I told her I was planning thousands and she laughed at my lack of desire to complete the mask at hand. Many years have passed and the first mask I started still hasn't been complete, but the thousands I designed have come into being.
The Courir de Mardi Gras is the Mardi Gras that is celebrated in the rural areas of Acadiana in south central to south western Louisiana. Masked participants in colorful costumes and skirted cone hats ride on horseback house to house to collect ingredients for a gumbo, the last big feast before the 40 days fast of their Lenten Tradition. The favorite ingredient to collect is live chickens which must be caught by the masked riders.
Everyone is invited to the gumbo and those who are homebound are often brought bowls of gumbo. The activities stop before the strike of midnight.
This is just a few of the mask I designed that on that hot summer day of my youth. I am now grandmother to many and am passing the tradition down to my own grandchildren.
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Uploaded
June 2nd, 2017
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