It is also a major boast to the local economy, with 10,000 or more visitors swelling the local population for a week or more.

Finding a spot at a local hotel, motel or campground is all but impossible, to say nothing of thousands more boarding with friends and relatives.

“Mardi Gras has proven to be a high time for visits to our area because our celebration is so unique,” said St. Landry Parish Tourism Director Celeste Gomez. “Even visitors from other parts of Louisiana don’t realize how authentic our rural celebration is.”

Throughout most of state and the rest of the nation, Mardi Gras is an urban celebration featuring elaborate floats with costumed revelers throwing tons of beads and trinkets.

But here, Mardi Gras is something entirely different. While the urban tradition is celebrated in many area towns and cities, for many the local celebration is still done on horseback and involves teams of riders scouring the countryside for the ingredients to make a communal gumbo.

In the old days, when money was tight and food scarce, the riders would dance, sing, cavort and do whatever it took to convince local farmers to donate rice, vegetables and meat.

Today, with food much more available, that has been reduced to primarily “dancing for a chicken.”

Dozens of Mardi Gras runs, ranging from hundreds to thousands of costumed riders, now dot the countryside.

Where before they would stop at every farm house in the widely spaced rural areas, now they have fixed stops where the homeowner has agreed to welcome the riders.

The high point of each stop is when the homeowner throws a chicken into the air and the riders scramble to catch it.

Georgie Manuel, an authority on the Eunice Mardi Gras celebration – one of the oldest and largest in the area, isn’t sure how long the party has been going on.

She points to notebooks of some of the first French explorers to area in the 1600s who mention taking time from exploring to celebrate.

With the arrival of the Acadians in the 1700s, it became a regular part of the prairie Cajun culture.

She said in Eunice, Mardi Gras dates to at least the founding of the city.

Eunice was created almost overnight in 1894. When a local rail line was laid through the area, a local developer held an auction from the bed of a railroad flat car and sold all the land in the city in a single day.

She has an article from the Crowley Signal newspaper in 1896 that speaks of the newly created community already being the home of Mardi Gras revelers.

With the exception of a few years during World War II, when all the men were away at the front, the party has never stopped.

In recent years it has grown into a week-long festival that annually attracts tens of thousands of visitors.

“Two generations before me have done it, in addition to the three generations after me that are now participating. That’s six generations of good times with good friends and family,” Manuel said.

While Mardi Gras can trace its roots to Medieval France, she said the local celebration, like Cajun culture in general, combines elements of Native American and African cultures as well as additions from almost every wave of newcomers since.

“It provide an experience not found anywhere else on Earth,” Manuel said.

It is also a tradition that continues to change with each new generation. As an example, Manuel said 40 or 50 years ago, only men were allowed to take part in the Mardi Gras rides.

Today, some runs remain male only but most include both man and women. There are also a growing number of children’s runs, a development that Manuel welcomes.

“Regardless of your cultural background and history, family or religious traditions, what is of the utmost importance is that you pass it on to the younger generation,” Manuel said.

At its base, Mardi Gras is a religious festival. The term means Fat Tuesday, and marked the day before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Catholic Lenten season.

That means for the faithful, the holiday is the last opportunity to enjoy the excesses of life before a period of fasting and prayer.

Gomez said, with the area’s strong Catholic heritage, that also means it is a holiday that is likely to continue for many years to come.

The high point of each stop is when the homeowner throws a chicken into the air and the riders scramble to catch it.