Although most people associate Mardi Gras with New Orleans, several communities in the twenty-two parish Cajun homeland of Acadiana sponsor their own Mardi gras celebrations. Meaning "Fat Tuesday" in French, Mardi Gras always occurs the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Roman Catholic season of Lent (a time of sacrifice for the faithful). Although a large, modern Mardi Gras celebration occurs in urban Lafayette (in central Acadiana), several rural, more traditional Mardi Gras celebrations occur nearby, such as in Mamou, Church Point, Basile, Iota, Kinder, and Eunice. There, groups of Mardi Gras revelers ride on horseback throughout the countryside, visiting houses and begging for ingredients to add to a large communal gumbo to be prepared in town later that day. This tradition is called la courir du Mardi gras (or la course de Mardi Gras) - "the running of the Mardi Gras." The courir's roots lie in the medieval fête de la quémande (a ritual "begging festival"); other medieval remnants include the wearing of pointed hats, miters, and mortarboards to mock the wealthy, the ordained, and the well-educated.

Most costumes are homemade and extremely colorful, and allow individuals to mock the usual social order: men dress as women, for instance, or the rich dress as the poor (and vice versa). Many riders, however, prefer to dress simply as clowns or monsters. The celebration sometimes involves sexual imagery, as, for instance, when riders use whips to flog one another. Cajun musicians accompany the revelers on their trek across the countryside. Despite its apparent abandon, the courir is not entirely without rules; these are enforced by the riders' leader, called la capitaine: for instance, riders cannot enter private property without the permission of the capitaine. For young Cajuns, the courir serves as a rite of passage into adulthood; for older Cajuns, it promotes ritual bonding.

Unfortunately, in recent years a growing number of outsiders have invaded the rural Mardi gras celebrations, and in doing so have interfered with this important Cajun tradition. As folklorist Barry Jean Ancelet has noted, "The countless photographers, journalists, ethnographers, and other 'foreign' observers who accompany huge processions . . . impede their progress through the countryside." As a result, some communities now hold a separate Mardi Gras celebration in town, to keep outsiders from accompanying the riders on their journey. Others, however, have taken the opposite approach, and have embraced outsiders as a means of attracting tourists, and their money, to rural south Louisiana.

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