Carnival meaning and purpose

[Eza 5]

In areas with the Roman Catholic believe carnival is celebrated. What is left of Carnival is a party, people enjoying themselves, people dressing up and lots of drinks. The goal of the festival seems to be happy. The original meaning of the festival seems to be forgotten. Carnival is folcloristic and modern at the same time.Here is a theory about the festival and its meaning.The festival was celebrated before the time of the Roman empire. The people at that time counted the new year to start in spring. After the cold of the winter nature starts to enwake again in spring. The plants start to grow. Flowers start to get flowers.So the idea was the year starts with the start of spring. Now this is a dangerous time. Because of the change of the old year to the new year the evil spirits come out too. And they seek who they can catch and put a bad spell upon. So people celebrate the end of the winter and the start of the new year. But at the same time it is important not to celebrate too much. The evil spirits might get jealous of so much joy and they are left out of the joy. So the people start to dress up to make it look that they look like somebody else. So the evil spirit doesn't manage to recognise them and to find out who is who. That is the reason for the dressing up in funny clothes in a way to look like somebody else.

Edited November 20, 2010 by Eza (see edit history)

[chini13 11]

woooo..the forum being flooded with eza's new topics...and all are so different nice..great..and so interesting to know...thats so true with every festival that the reason for the celebration is often forgotten with time..only the celebration remains..so we come to know the reason why carnivals are celebrated ...the evil spirit and the bad effect ..all these theories are part of every continent in their own ways..but they seems to be so outdated and superstitious for the people to believe in the present scientific era.thanks for sharing

[Eza 5]

It is possible to see some more or less interesting points of view. The first is the celebrating of the new year. The old year and the winter disappeared. Saying it in a basical way, the people managed to survive through the cold of the winter. So there are lots or reasons to be happy.

 

Another interesting point of view is to see the way habits work. It seems people don't change habits very soon.

 

In spite of the making of the calendre and while not following the decisions to let the year mathematically start on the first of January, the folkloristic habits of the folk people still go on with celebrating. The main reasons to celebrate were the end of the Winter, the start of the new season and a new year in the old way of thinking after the Winter and the start of Spring. These reasons to celebrate seem to be forgotten. But the people continue to party and to celebrate at the end of the winter and the start of Spring.

 

It seems people adjust to the situation and celebrate the new year at December 31 and January 1. And the old habits of celebrating the arrival of Spring are still kept alive too.

 

At the other hand, the habit of lightning fire work is based on the idea of evil spirits too. The idea with fire work is to make the evil spirits afraid and to frighten the bad spirits away and to let them disappear of fear by the loud noises. So the idea that bad spirits will be extra active when a change in the year happens and that something needs to be done to get rid of the bad spirits and to avoid the influence bad spirits can have to the people used to be the reason to make lots of hard noises.

 

And without thinking of bad spirits who have to be frightened away people still use firework once the new year starts.

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2010 by Eza (see edit history)