Joe Cain
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Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. (Joe Cain) (October 10, 1832 – April 17, 1904) [1] [2] is largely credited with the rebirth of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama.[1] [3] In 1866, following the Civil War and while Mobile was still under Union occupation, Joe Cain paraded through the streets of Mobile, dressed in improvised costume depicting a fictional Chickasaw chief named Slacabamorinico.[1][3] The choice was a backhanded insult to the Union forces in that the Chickasaw had never been defeated in war. The following year (1867), Joe was joined by other Confederate veterans, parading in a decorated coal wagon, playing drums and horns, and the group became the "Lost Cause Minstrels" of Mobile.[3][1]
This was the origin of The Order of Myths parade on Fat Tuesday.[1] Joe Cain is currently buried at Church Street Graveyard in Mobile, Alabama.[1]
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[edit] Life and work
Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr. was born on October 10, 1832, along Dauphin Street in Mobile, Alabama.[3] He was a son of Joseph Cain, Sr. (1799-1856) [4] and Julia Ann Turner (1795-1877).[4][1] Joe Cain (junior) married Elizabeth Alabama Rabby (1835-1907).[1] He helped to organize the T.D.S. (Tea Drinker’s Society), [2] one of Mobile's mystic societies, in 1846; however, their banquets were part of Mobile's New Year's Eve celebrations, rather than being held on Mardi Gras day.[3] Other groups had developed Mardi Gras parades, but the Civil War had brought them to a halt.[3]
Cain participated in Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans in 1865 as a Confederate veteran, and he returned to Mobile determined to revive the celebration.[3] He conceived the fictional character of Chief Slacabamorinico ("slaka-BAM orin-ah-CO") while he was working as a clerk at the city market: he planned to make him a mighty Chickasaw, the leader of an undefeated tribe.[3]
The chief, as Cain in costume with a native skirt and feathered headdress, paraded through the city streets on Mardi Gras day in 1866, irreverently celebrating the day in front of the occupying Union Army troops.[3]
The following year (1867), a band of fellow Confederate Rebel veterans (including Thomas Burke, Rutledge Parham, John Payne, John Bohanan, Barney O'Rourke, and John Maguire) accompanied Joe Cain as "Old Slac" riding through town on a decorated coal wagon, playing horns and drums, parading and celebrating.[3] The group became known as the "Lost Cause Minstrels" in Mobile.[3][1]
The parade was the origin of the Order of Myths (OOM) parade, the final parade each year, on Fat Tuesday in Mobile.[1] Joe Cain founded many of the mystic societies, and he built a tradition of Mardi Gras parades.[1]
Joe Cain, who had played Old Slac until 1879, died in 1904 and was buried in the fishing village of Bayou La Batre (Alabama).[3] Julian Lee "Judy" Rayford arranged to have Joe Cain reburied in Mobile's Church Street Graveyard in 1966,[2] and he established Joe Cain Day in 1967 by walking at the head of a jazz funeral down Government Street to the cemetery.[3]
Joe Cain's wife, Elizabeth Alabama Rabby Cain, died 3 years later, in 1907 at Bayou La Batre,[2] and she is also re-buried, beside him.[1][2]
[edit] Joe Cain Day
The Sunday before Fat Tuesday, Joe Cain Day is celebrated as part of the scheduled Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, with its center being the Joe Cain Parade. This has been called "The People's Parade" due to the fact that it is performed by citizens without being run by a specific Mardi Gras krewe. Originally, anybody who showed up at the parade start on Sunday morning could join in with whatever makeshift float they could cobble together. Eventually, the sheer size and disorder forced the organizers to limit the participants to a preset limit. The parade is preceded with the visit of the "Cain's Merry Widows" to the gravesite of their "departed husband" (described below).
Julian Lee "Judy" Rayford established Joe Cain Day in 1967 by walking at the head of a jazz funeral down Government Street to the Church Street Graveyard, where he had arranged to have Joe Cain and his wife reburied[3] in 1966.[2] When Joe Cain was disinterred from Bayou La Batre, Julian brought Joe Cain's skull back to Mobile in the pocket of his coat, and that is considered to be the first "passing of the feathers" to the next man to wear the headdress in Mardi Gras, as Slacabamorinico, chief of the Chickasaw.[3]
The impression that the celebration had on a couple of visitors from California resulted in Joe Cain Days being officially recognized, in 1993, as a sister celebration by the Joe Cain Society of California in Nevada City, California each Mardi Gras. [5]
The Mardi Gras mystic society of "Cain's Merry Widows" (a women's mystic society) was founded in 1974 in Mobile, Alabama.[3] Each Mardi Gras, on Joe Cain Day (the Sunday before Fat Tuesday), members of this society dress in funeral black with veils, lay a wreath at Cain's burial site in Church Street Graveyard to wail over their "departed husband's" grave, then travel to Joe Cain's house on Augusta Street to offer a toast and eulogy to their "beloved Joe," continuously arguing over which widow was his favorite [^MOBCOM].
[edit] See also
- Mardi Gras in Mobile - main article about Mobile's Mardi Gras festival.
- Merry Widows of Joe Cain.
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Joseph Stillwell Cain, Jr." Leon Weekley, Find a Grave, Oct. 8, 2004, webpage: FG-JCain.
- ^ a b c d e f "Carnival/Mobile Mardi Gras Timeline" (list of events by year), Museum of Mobile, 2001, webpage: MoM-timeline.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p "Joe Cain Articles" (newspaper story), Joe Danborn & Cammie East, Mobile Register, 2001, webpage: CMW-history.
- ^ a b "Grave Search Results" (parents), Find a Grave, 2007, webpage: FGp.
- ^ "Joe Cain Days, Nevada City" (description), Nevada County Things-to-Do, Nevada City, California, webpage: NCT-JCainDays.
