Publish at March 02 2003 Updated October 22 2025
Housed in the vast buildings of the former Collège des Augustins, the Musée International du Carnaval et du Masque Mumask in Binche, Belgium, is an indispensable addition to the understanding not only of the European carnival tradition, but also of the uses of masks in different parts of the world. It is not just, as most visitors still think, a "museum of Gilles and the Binche carnival".
The breadth of its collections is universal". With these words, the curator of Binche's virtual museum greets you. The festive populace attends the carnival every year, enthralled by the traditional throwing of oranges by the feathered men, dancing to the sound of their apertintailles.
Do you know why Mardi Gras is called a moveable feast? Because, in the calendar, Mardi Gras is linked to Ash Wednesday, a moveable feast linked to the date of Easter. Easter immediately follows the full moon after the spring equinox, on March 21. It can vary from March 22 to April 25. Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, which precede Easter by one and a half moons, are always placed at the time of the new moon. Mardi Gras can therefore fall on February 3 at the earliest, and March 9 at the latest.
There's no Carnival without masks, hence the association, even confusion, between the Carnival Museum and the Mask Museum. On the latter's website, you'll discover an initiatory journey into the world of masks, before exploring the collections presented continent by continent. But you'll also discover carnivals and winter festivals, a synthesis of agrarian rites, religious festivities and social practices that mark the death of the past year and the beginning of a new calendar year.
These contemporary urban customs simply respond to man's primordial need to protect himself, during these critical days, from all the real or fictitious dangers that threaten the world or the imagination; it is always in the hope of attracting good fortune that he celebrates the winter festivals with fervor, pomp and sometimes in acts of spending and consumption, as his ancestors already did.
Teachers will be particularly interested to know that a Pedagogical Service is on hand to help them organize and promote school visits, and to offer active tours and activities.
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