Mardi Gras is in full swing in the Mobile area. For the Fat Tuesday celebration, Dauphin Island becomes home to the Massacre Island Secret Society. The Mardi Gras Krewe got its name from a story involving Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and his younger brother, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. The two men found about 60 human skeletons gathered in mounds on the shore. They believed it was the site of a massacre. Gene Fox serves on the Dauphin Island Town Council. He says the story inspired the dream of an old-fashioned, nighttime parade.
“I guess we all lost what sanity we had left during the pandemic. All of this was born out of a need during the pandemic to just go do something. We've drawn on a lot of those different old stories and tried to bring that old-fashioned feel and that old-fashioned folklore to it.
One group that participated in the nighttime parade were the Pelican Girls. Joy Hunt, one of the group’s founders, explains the Pelican Girls were orphan girls from France brought to the island in 1704 to be the wives of settlers. She plays one named Louise…
“When we got to Cuba, my girl, Louise-Francoise Lefevre, contracted Yellow Fever from a mosquito. Once we left Cuba and got to Fort Lewis, I had a horrible trip, and we got off, it was August 1st, 1704. I died August 1st, 1704. Twenty-three girls made it, but only 22 girls actually lived.
The parade is a celebration of history and Mardi Gras in the Gulf coast community.