In The Flow of Time – July 29, 2024
Researching life in Louisiana in the 1800s I run across this, about Acadian weddings. “Sometimes the ceremony included a charivari… The custom was an old one and was particularly popular in New Orleans, until the authorities suppressed it as a public nuisance.”
My writer-sense goes off. This is a new word, about a folk custom of some kind, and it was a THING in New Orleans. One of the first things I encounter when I start down this rabbit hole is “rough music.” I am even more intrigued. So follow along… here we go.
Charivari has an entirely different meaning, a chain of charms german people wear on lederhosen. Nope, not going there. This is a different charivari. It is an impromptu procession accompanied by a great deal of noise.
It is ancient, dating into medieval times, probably the dark ages. It isn’t French per se, it’s European. The tradition goes by many names. In England it was known as a skimmington, a lowballing, or a tin-panning. In France, it’s known as the “concert des casseroles” or casserolade; the Spanish, cacerolada. You get the idea, a bunch of people parading down the street, urban or rural, shouting, hollering, laughing, banging on pots and pans to make a giant ruckus.
“A Skimmington Ride involved the guilty parties being placed on a donkey or a pole and carried around the town while being beaten with skimmingtons, which are large wooden ladles. Accompanying this would be loud music, people banging on pots and pans, and singing of various cacophonous songs.”
The charivari has dark roots. It was the vigilante morality police, the locals publicly shaming someone who did something they disapproved of, often sexual. Common targets of a charivari were perceived adultery; large age disparities in a marriage; a widow or widower remarrying before the year of mourning was complete.
Charivari is the root of the English word shivaree, and by the early 19th century it had evolved to a mostly benign, fun time. “The noisy banging of pots and pans as a mock serenade to a newly married couple.”
In that spirit, I go digging into New Orleans, and find almost nothing. So far, one reference, from 1804, and here you get the impact of the French joie-de-vivre on this ancient custom. “the mobbing of Madame Don Andrés Almonester’s home in New Orleans in March 1804. Thousands of people in costumes gathered to punish a rich older woman and her new Cajun husband. The mob was appeased by a $3,000 donation to the city’s orphans.” There is a real overlap with another ancient Lenten tradition, fake courts where the wealthy would be arrested by the commoners, “convicted” of a crime and pay a fine or ransom which went to charity; all in good fun. That’s a good tale, and perhaps I can get some of that color into my story. All right.
But, along the way I run across an odd phrase in this context, whitecapping, another new word. I read on.
The charivari evolves into something truly evil. Add public anonymity to the vigilante mob. “Whitecapping was associated historically with such insurgent groups as The Night Riders, Bald Knobbers, and the Ku Klux Klan. They were known for committing “extralegal acts of violence targeting select groups, carried out by vigilantes under cover of night or disguise.” White. Caps.
The historical root of the Ku Klux Klan sits within the medieval tradition of charivari. It was terrorism, plain and simple. “We don’t like your kind.” Threats, placards, signs, burning crosses, leading to whippings, beatings, arson, drownings, lynchings. Don’t you love the morality police?
At the end of this rabbit hole, maybe nothing makes it into the story. The evolution of charivari into the KKK is outside the time frame and scope of the story. But the idea of “morality police’ is quite likely to raise its head. It’s a favorite topic of mine, and now it has deeper roots.
