Pkdezire: Easter Carnival Girls dance Pics

Carnival is originally a European Pagan spring festival, with an emphasis on role-reversal and suspension of social norms.
The feast became assimilated by the christian catholic church and was celebrated in the three days preceding ash wednesday and lent.
From an anthropological point of view Carnaval is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.
Carnaval can also be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.

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In modern times the connection with religion has disappeared, though its date is still set before the start of the christian feast of lent. Also the core of the modern carnaval has retained its socially critical function by role reversal and temporary abandonment of social norms. The first day of carnaval is six weeks before easter Sunday.
The carnaval officially begins on Sunday and lasts three days.

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Though according to tradition the feast lasts from Sunday until Tuesday, in recent years the feast usually starts on Saturday. Also Friday evening (or at schools at Friday afternoon) and in some places Thursday (Ouwe Wijven) are considered the start of the carnaval, which makes it a six days celebration. The festivities last the entire day and well into the nights. Some parades and many balls and bonte avonden or other meetings are held in the weeks before the official carnaval, but never before the first official court meeting on November 11. Historically on Wednesday at midnight the 40 days of lent would start until easter. Nowadays it is still the official ending of the carnaval, though some carnaval activities like herring eating are traditionally held on Wednesday after carnaval.