Happy mi-carême!

[seagal]

Today the French community in my province are celebrating Mi-Carême (Mid-Lent). Mi-Carême is an event (a date) but also a masked person that appears on that day.
There were (are) two traditions associated with Mi-Carême. There is the one where masked people go from house to house to have a bit of fun and to see if they will be recognized or not. The other tradition is the scary solitary character that brings treats to children who have been good. As far as I know, that very old tradition only survives in Prince Edward Island. There was a time when it was also know in southeast New Brunswick. A similar custom used to exist in Brittany and Normandy, in France.

Here is one person’s recollection of the Mi-Carême from her childhood days :
“That Mi-Carême would come across the fields. We’d wait for the Mi-Carême. We’d be watching everywhere: ‘When’s she coming?’ The first thing we’d see was her coming across the fields with a big cane. She’d fall a couple of times; sometimes she’d be in the mud. She’d come to the door then she’d bang on the door. As soon as the children heard her, they were so scared! She’d come in the house. She didn’t talk. The Mi-Carême wasn’t supposed to talk. She’d have her big cane, then she’d point at the floor to make the children dance. If the children danced, she’d give them a sucker or something. They were really scared of her. They’d move their feet around trying to dance. After they’d danced, they’d go hide in a corner. They were really frightened.”

Has anyone else heard of the custom of celebrating mid-Lent?

 

[dshix]

Today the French community in my province are celebrating Mi-Carême (Mid-Lent). Mi-Carême is an event (a date) but also a masked person that appears on that day.
There were (are) two traditions associated with Mi-Carême. There is the one where masked people go from house to house to have a bit of fun and to see if they will be recognized or not. The other tradition is the scary solitary character that brings treats to children who have been good. As far as I know, that very old tradition only survives in Prince Edward Island. There was a time when it was also know in southeast New Brunswick. A similar custom used to exist in Brittany and Normandy, in France.

Here is one person’s recollection of the Mi-Carême from her childhood days :
“That Mi-Carême would come across the fields. We’d wait for the Mi-Carême. We’d be watching everywhere: ‘When’s she coming?’ The first thing we’d see was her coming across the fields with a big cane. She’d fall a couple of times; sometimes she’d be in the mud. She’d come to the door then she’d bang on the door. As soon as the children heard her, they were so scared! She’d come in the house. She didn’t talk. The Mi-Carême wasn’t supposed to talk. She’d have her big cane, then she’d point at the floor to make the children dance. If the children danced, she’d give them a sucker or something. They were really scared of her. They’d move their feet around trying to dance. After they’d danced, they’d go hide in a corner. They were really frightened.”

Has anyone else heard of the custom of celebrating mid-Lent?

Never heard of it. It definitely doesn’t sound like a Christian tradition.

 

[seagal]

Of course it’s Christian, it’s a celebration for mid-Lent. It’s a particularly French tradition in Atlantic Canada, I just wondered if it was also practised in other parts of the world, perhaps in the Cajun areas of the US. (Cajuns were, after all, originally Acadians – French settlers from the Maritime region of Canada)

 

[pensmama87]

Never heard of it. It definitely doesn’t sound like a Christian tradition.

To be fair, there’s a lot of holiday traditions that arise that don’t seem overtly Christian. Think about all the threads bemoaning the secularization of Easter and Christmas - where large groups of people do things without realizing where they come from at all! Or Mardi Gras or Halloween.

This doesn’t just happen with Christianity - I remember talking with a Jewish friend about how his family celebrated Purim and he said it was basically “Jewish Halloween.” Not much relationship to the story of Esther, where the festival originated.

I’ve never heard this either, but that’s not surprising because I grew up solidly secular.

 

[seagal]

I misspoke in my earlier post. I don’t mean this is a Church celebration, I meant of course the people who celebrate it are Christian. It’s kind of along the lines of Mardi Gras, you know how we use the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday as a last chance to eat treats before the fast. I guess at some time people (probably French) decided that they needed to break up Lent a little.

 

[dshix]

To be fair, there’s a lot of holiday traditions that arise that don’t seem overtly Christian. Think about all the threads bemoaning the secularization of Easter and Christmas - where large groups of people do things without realizing where they come from at all! Or Mardi Gras or Halloween.

This doesn’t just happen with Christianity - I remember talking with a Jewish friend about how his family celebrated Purim and he said it was basically “Jewish Halloween.” Not much relationship to the story of Esther, where the festival originated.

I’ve never heard this either, but that’s not surprising because I grew up solidly secular.

Right, that’s what I meant. Just like I don’t think we’d call the Halloween "trick or treat"ing a “Christian tradition”, I wouldn’t call this a Christian tradition either.