Present day Carnival is an inheritance of several celebrations realized in Antiquity by people like the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans. These pagan feasts (pagan is any person or thing that is not related to baptism from the standpoint of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but which follows and adopts rituals of polytheistic religions) served to celebrate great harvests and especially to praise divinities.
It is likely that the most important ancestors of Carnival were the "saturnals" held in ancient Rome in exaltation to Saturn, the god of agriculture. At the time of this celebration, the schools closed, the slaves were released and the Romans danced in the streets.
There was even a sort of "great-grandfather" of the current floats. They carried naked men and women and they were called carrum navalis, something like "naval car", since they were shaped like ships. Some researchers see the origin of the word "carnival" there.
Most scholars, however, think the term comes from another Latin term: carnem levare, which means "to withdraw or be free from the flesh." This is because, as early as the Middle Ages, these old pagan festivities were incorporated by the Catholic Church, marking the last days of "freedom" before the restrictions imposed by Lent, which are the 40 days before Easter.
In this period of penance for Christians (during the 40 days before Easter), the consumption of meat was forbidden. The variation of the Carnival date in the calendar is due to the direct link with Easter - which, in the Southern Hemisphere, always happens on the first Sunday after the first full moon of Autumn.
Given the date of the Christian holiday, just go back 46 days in the calendar (40 Lent plus six Holy Week) to reach Ash Wednesday.
The Carnival celebration took on different forms in the Catholic countries that held the celebration. In Brazil, the influence of the "entrudo" was great, a general “folia” meaning old bustling Portuguese dance, accompanied by songs, tambourines and performed by men dressed as women, made in Portugal, where the jokes with water were common.
In its beginnings, in the 17th century, the Carnival in Portugal had no music or dance, played the “entrudo”(the three days that precede Lent). This is where the "water wars" custom came from.
But the “artillery” of those times was often heavier, with not only water buckets and cans, but also mud, oranges, eggs, and lemons, small balls of fine wax stuffed with water and other substances.
Madness
Another tradition of Carnival is the habit of men dressing in women's outfits. There are records of this in street revelry since the beginning of the 20th century.
These men dressed as women are called Matrafonas
"The explanation lies in the very party of psychology, an inversion space, which seeks to be exactly what one is not in the rest of the year," says the philologist Rachel Valencia, director of the Research Center of the House of Rui Barbosa Foundation, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The Zés Pereiras, drum troupes genuinely from Portugal
Open wings for a Brazilian beat
Carnival marching bands set the tone for the party between the 1930s and 1950s. But the rhythm emerged in the late 19th century. "O Abre Alas" is considered the first song written especially for a Carnival block.
The "music for dancing" was composed by the teacher Chiquinha Gonzaga, in 1899, for the carnival group Rosa de Ouro, from Andaraí, in Rio de Janeiro.
With the block on the street (from Rio)
World famous Brazilian Carnival with Samba dance
The carnival blocks appeared in the middle of the 19th century. The first one to be reported is credited to the Portuguese shoemaker José Nogueira de Azevedo Prates, Zé Pereira. In 1846, he left the streets of Rio playing a kick drum. The shuffle attracted the attention of other revellers, who were joining the solitary musician.
Brazilian dancer. Most dancers are far from being rich but save a year for their costumes.
Carnival is, therefore a very specific word for a very specific set of events that take place for three days non stop. It may be the release or sublimation of many frustrations, stress, through the use of energy and joy.
