Monthly Archives: April 2014
284.HOW DID BANDS ORIGINATE?
Everybody loves to hear a band! A parade wouldn’t be a parade wit out one, and can you imagine the circus without a band? Nowadays, a band has even become part of our sports activities, and school bands play at all the big games.
The first brass bands were nothing like our bands of today. A few traveling musicians would appear here and there, play for a while, and then move on. By the end of the thirteenth century, however, these bands had grown in size and had become so popular that they began to form special organizations. They established guilds just as did people who specialized in other kinds of work, and these guilds had rules and regulations and guarded the rights of the musicians who played in bands.
283.DID CHILDREN HAVE TOYS IN ANCIENT TIMES?
What does a toy mean to you? Is it just anything you play with; for example, two pieces of wood, a rock or a piece of cloth? While these may serve as toys sometimes, we really mean something more than that by the word “toy.”
A toy is usually something to amuse children that in some way mimics what grownups do. A gun, a car or wagon, a doll, or a little house are such toys. So are balls and tops. But since children, from the beginning of time, have liked to mimic grownups, we can assume that toys have probably existed since the earliest history of man.
282.WHY IS BLACK WORN FOR MOURNING?
We think of our way of life as the only one, and when we learn about other civilizations, we are often shocked, or at least surprised. When we mourn somebody, we naturally wear black What else could one wear?
Well, in Japan and China, they wear pure white when mourning! And in some sections of Africa, the natives apply red paint to their bodies as a sign of mourning.
