Carnival is a festival that takes placein Catholiccountries before the start of Lent, a 40-day period before Easter. During Lent, believers honorJesus’40 days of walking in the desert. Many people fast, which means they stop eating for a certain amount of time or avoid certain foods, especially meat. What better time to have a party than before a fast?
The word carnival comes from the Latin carne levare , which means “remove meat.” The Carnival holiday got started in the Middle Ages, probably around 800 years ago. At the time, Carnival was a feastto finish offthe meat stored during the winter before the fast of Lent. As the weather got warmer, people needed to eat the food before it went bad. Lent fasting was “forced” because there wasn’t a lot of food to go aroundduring the first few weeks of spring. Today, that is not the case because of refrigeration, but the tradition lives on.
Brazil, which has the largest Catholic populationin the world, also has the biggest Carnival. For Brazilians, Carnival is much more important than Christmas. They have been celebrating it since 1641. But these days, they have a nicknamefor the event: The Greatest Show on Earth.
