Cajun Mardi Gras Run with Mud Soaked Chicken

(Original Caption) Louisiana: Each year at Mardi Gras time, rowdy parades roll and revelers fight over worthless trinkets, an equally crazed celebration unfolds in the Cajun and Creole country 150 miles to the west. Hundreds of horseback riders dressed in medieval mummers costumes and masks gather for the purpose of chasing chickens. This is rural Mardi Gras, a pre-Lenten celebration from medieval Europe. As they have for generations for four days before Ash Wednesday, the celebrant go about collecting ingredients for a group gumbo, seeking "charity" - a dominion of rice, sausage, onions - or a chicken. If a chicken is offered it is not simply handed over, but tossed into flight and then frantically followed over fences, through fields and streams until it is caught by hand. While the poultry is being pursued, the other costumed characters dance, gulp beer and generally cut up. The (Photo by mark peterson/Corbis via Getty Images)