Carnival La Paz, Baja California Sur Mexico 2008

Carnival La Paz, Baja California Sur Mexico 2008

"carnaval". The general consensus is that it evolved during the middle ages, as part of the Roman Catholic ritual of lent. It gets a little more vague after that.

The Venetian seem to claim the most palatable explanation. The Shrove Thursday celebration is closely related to the history of the Serenissima Republic of Venice, consequently to the victory over Ulrico, Patriarch of Aquileia.

Ulrico's troops had attacked Venice while the "Serenissima" was busy fighting another war against the Ducati of Padova and Ferrara. Italy was a lively place, at that time.

After the defeat, Ulrico of Aquileia, had to pay the Venetians one bull and 12 pigs, as war reimbursement. (I wish invading Iraq had been so cheap!)

So, from that moment on, the tradition was established of "executing" every year that same amount of animals in the San Marco square, and all the population participated to the feast, banquet, dances, acrobats. I found this story stretched even a little further: Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” As time passed, Carnaval evolved. Carnavals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their tradition of celebrating carnaval

Taken from Baja Insider http://www.bajainsider.com/baja-life/events/carnival/carnival-la-paz.htm