I am writing this on Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival, also called "Mardi Gras", which is French for 'Tuesday Fat', meaning something like 'prosperous Tuesday'. Tomorrow, were I part of the right group and persuasion, I would begin a penitential fast. Well, just of meat. My advisor in graduate school regularly sacrificed for the 40 days of Lent but instead of giving up meat, promised to forgo "all candy from Egypt that comes in a bag." He had a French-sounding last name and may have been a little conscious of the meaning and tradition of Lent.
At the right time in history, I think people had many things to be afraid of. Not that we don't have our share, too, but just the invention and application since about 1937 of antibiotics has given us a sense of better understanding and less helplessness about disease. I can imagine that last days of winter, dreary and seemingly endless, being a very good time for religious authorities to try to lift peoples' energy with a challenge. Besides, by then, the supply of smoked meat was running low so it would be a good time to save.
If you are really going to do a good job of sacrificing, you need to cleanse yourself in preparation. It is a very strong rebuff to offer a sacrifice that is rejected as unworthy. One way to cleanse the mind is to confess. I'm sure you can think of sins, transgressions and trespasses, little unkindnesses and big, that you should admit to your confessor. If you can't, you can just sit there until you do! (You know the logic: you aren't perfect, are you? Of course not! If you aren't, you have flaws. Confess them and repent of them! Maybe they won't be held against you on the Last Day.)
"Shrove" is an old word, the Wikipedia says, that means 'confess'. All this confession, repentance and sacrifice is a bit scary so first let's have a party and a parade and a cotillion, a big dance, which will also give us a chance to have our son meet the daughter of our friends. It would be great for the estate if those two became a couple.
Yes, many different traditions and purposes, not to mention business and sales, are involved.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
