A run on tradition

The courir - or run - is passed on the way all true traditions are, one generation at a time. In Iota, the children start young, dressing up in loud costumes, pointed hats - or capuchons - singing songs and dancing for their gumbo ingredients.

The Tee-Mamou Iota Children's Mardi Gras Run was held for the 11th time Sunday afternoon.

Children and women aren't allowed in the regular Mardi Gras Day run. Women in this town began holding their own run back in the '60s. Those women eventually decided the children needed to be included too.

"It's a tradition to pass to our children," said Sonia Miller, a mother of a runner, "and to teach our children our Cajun culture from where we came and what we were taught."  The participants are called "Mardi Gras" - with the "s" spoken at the end - and they dress up in bright, multicolored costumes with tall hats and masks.

All the costumes must be handmade, organizer Darlene Latiola said.

The older children pile onto a trailer with red-, yellow- and green-painted plywood sides. The younger children - as young as 4 - and their mothers load onto a rickety flat-bed.

Excitement builds on the first trailer as the older children bang the sides and scream. The trailer holding the youngsters and their mothers is quieter, except for the occasional mother making final adjustments to a capuchon.

The anticipation is palpable. For the past month, the children have been in training - learning their dance steps, the song they must sing and the roles they play as Mardi Gras.

There are nine stops this band of Mardi Gras make. With a police escort in front and a pickup full of Cajun musicians in back, they travel the highways around Iota. It's a mobile party - a long line of vehicles full of parents and party-goers bring up the rear. There's not much traffic for the police to stop - it seems like everyone in town is following. Those who aren't wave from front porches or honk their car horns.

At the home of Dudley Roy, the Mardi Gras jump out of the trailers and perform their French song for the Roy family.

The song - which is rather long - asks the family for a favor. The Mardi Gras need to eat and they are begging for a gumbo. At each stop they ask for an ingredient for the gumbo, which gets fixed at the end of the run. Saturday's ingredients are actually more practical, Latiola said - like a three-liter Coke and a plate of cookies - because the meal has already been fixed.

In exchange for the food, the Mardi Gras will dance and perform for the family, 13-year-old Mardi Gras Blake Miller said.

The dance is accompanied by an accordian and guitar. The children line up in the Roy's field and chase a chicken, which is thrown high into the air.

The chicken is surprisingly smart - she darts through a barbed-wire fence and has to be thrown back into the fray by a helpful adult. It's amazing how fast a chicken can run when chased by 50 diving, lunging children.

After the chicken is worn down and captured, it's time to go to the next stop.

"Come on, Mardi Gras, it's time to go," a captain yells. Captains are older, mostly men, who carry whips made of braided yarn.

On cue, several troublemakers begin to run from the captains. One brightly colored Mardi Gras yells from high above in an oak tree behind the spectators.

"Hey, the chicken's over here!" he yells. He whoops for the captains' attention.

Other troublemakers tackle the captains and try to grab their whips. One of the captains gets his shoelaces tied together.

The troublemakers - mostly older boys - are playing their roles, Miller said, showing their thanks to the host family by putting on a show.

And it is a show. A captain dutifully climbs the tree high enough to whip the behind of the renegade Mardi Gras. Brightly colored whips are flung everywhere as the children scatter and hide like unruly cattle.

The spectators laugh at each antic. Many moms and dads work video cameras and shout encouragement, as they would at a Little League game.