We’ve been struck with what a unique part beads play in the life of south Louisiana. It’s a longstanding tradition to throw beads from floats at every parade, and there are many, many parades. Just in our time here, we’ve been at the Duck Festival Parade, the Gueydan High School Homecoming Parade, Festival Acadiens in Lafayette, the Christmas Parade, the Mardi Gras Ball, the Mardi Gras Run, and three Mardi Gras parades in Lafayette.
Beads have been an integral part of each event.
The sheer volume of beads is astonishing. At first, being completely unused to the practice, Chelsea and I collected as many as we could, and sent them off to Alex. We were so excited! This seemed like such a local custom, and we loved the colors and whimsical feeling. We even saved a few to hang as decorations in our house here.
Gradually, as we were exposed to more and more of the events and more and more beads, we realized how deeply entrenched the custom is, and what an impact it has.
The variety and quality of the beads alone tell a story. They come in all colors, shapes, sizes, lengths, and designs. The creativity is amazing on some of them. The more unusual the beads are, the more they cost, so the more infrequent they are, and the more infrequent they are, the more desired they are.
We began to realize that the beads you wear tell a story – If you’ve got great beads, either you are really lucky and have actually caught the unusual beads (and that’s tough to do!), or you have been a participant in floats and have gradually acquired your own collection, or you have close connections to people who have good beads.
The cost of the beads is staggering – we had one man tell us that he and his family spent over $1200 on one Mardi Gras alone, and hadn’t one string of beads left. Keeping that in mind, take a look at some of our photos of the Mardi Gras Run in Gueydan and the Mardi Gras parades in Lafayette. Look for the beads hanging on the floats, ready to be thrown. Can you imagine what that all cost? That’s quite a little industry down here!
Suddenly it made sense when we realized that groups such as the Boy Scouts collect beads to throw at other parades. Others collect the thrown beads and have local disabled groups repair them if needed and repackage them to throw. The beads are sorted by type and style, and packaged twelve strings to a group, kept together by a strip of paper stapled over them.
The weight of the beads is astonishing. We watched the weight collapse Jane Hair’s “collection umbrella”; we paid the postage to send some of ours home; we watched people hit by the beads and wince; we know how heavy they are around our necks; and we know how heavy our bags were as we carried our booty home from the Lafayette parades. (We think it may have been up to thirty-plus pounds!)
Getting hit by the beads is no small matter. Some of the people on those floats have strong throwing arms! We’ve heard stories of goose eggs and bruises, and I’m not surprised after my experience at the Lafayette parades. Later in the afternoon, I got nailed on my knuckles by a really big set of beads, and it hurt for several hours. I’m glad it was just my knuckles and not my face…
So how did we rate on our collection after a few months here in bead-throwing country?
We did really well. We fell into both the “really lucky” and the “we know people” categories. We got necklaces with crawfish, alligators, and Captain Morgan emblems; blinking footballs, shot glasses, and rubber ducks; and I got a beautiful set of large plastic beads. I scored big time again in Lafayette by catching a package of huge beads (that look almost like Christmas ornaments), and I caught a beautiful necklace that has Mardi Gras masks (faces).
One favorite though, that we didn’t get, was a gorgeous set of twisted strands (look at Benton Scott’s photos in our Mardi Gras Run photo album). Another favorite was the one Bobby and Ashley each had – a necklace hung with pieces of mushroom, carrot, corn, potato – all the ingredients for gumbo. We couldn’t talk them into giving it up…
What did we finally do with our beads? After a bit of agonizing, we sorted carefully through all the bags and kept the most unusual ones to send back to Alex. We also kept a very few strands that looked like jewelry so we could have something to dress up in as we head on down the road. They are light and low profile and fun, and they’ll keep the memories of south Louisiana alive.
We opted for giving the remaining thirty pounds of beads to Heuetta, whose daughter Erika runs a Boy Scout troop. They’ll sort, repair and repackage the strings of beads, and they’ll be ready for the next parade.
And we’ll be on down the road, much better educated about the part beads play in the lives of south Louisiana citizens.