首页
登录
职称英语
A far cry from the pirates and princesses of today, costumes during Hallowee
A far cry from the pirates and princesses of today, costumes during Hallowee
游客
2024-11-25
18
管理
问题
A far cry from the pirates and princesses of today, costumes during Halloween’s precursor centuries ago included animal skins and heads, drag getups, and even mechanical horse heads, historians say.
Records of the precursor to Halloween—the Celtic new year celebration of Saimhain—are extremely threadbare, said Ken Nilsen, professor of Celtic studies at Canada’s St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. "We don’t have actual records telling us what it was like in ancient times, so our knowledge is based principally on folk customs that continued until recent centuries,"Nilsen told National Geographic News.
Samhain, however, is known to date back at least 2,000 years, based on analysis of a Celtic bronze calendar discovered in the 1890s in Coligny, France, in what was then called Gaul. The festival marked the end of the Celtic year, when the harvest was gathered and animals were rounded up. It’s said the hides of cattle and other livestock slaughtered at this time were ritually worn during festivities that likely hark back to even earlier pagan beliefs.
Ancient Roman writers recorded that tribes in what is now Germany and France held riotous ceremonies where they donned the heads and skins of wild mammals to connect with animal spirits. The custom of wearing animal hides at bonfire-lighted Celtic feast ceremonies survived until recent times, Nilsen notes. "This was certainly done at Martinmas(the November 11 Christian feast of St. Martin)in Ireland and Scotland, which, in the old calendar, would be Halloween,"he said. "There might have been an excess of livestock, so it would make sense to slaughter an animal,"Nilsen said.
Samhain night was also a celebration of the dead—the one time the spirits were believed to walk among the living. Again, the earliest rituals aren’t known in detail, but in recent centuries families put out food and even set extra table places for their ancestors at Samhain. It was also a night when people dressed to create mischief and confusion, according to Bettina Arnold of the Center for Celtic Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "The spirits of the dead were impersonated by young men dressed with masked, veiled or blackened faces," Arnold wrote in an essay titled Halloween Customs in the Celtic World. These disguises were intended both to protect revelers from any malevolent spirits and to fool households they visited. In Scotland and elsewhere, revelers masquerading as the dead would go around demanding food offerings—a forerunner to today’s trick-or-treating. Nilsen of St. Francis Xavier University added: " People put on costumes which frequently included blackened faces and so on, representing spooks, demons, or whatever. "
According to the University of Wisconsin’s Arnold, on Samhain the boundary between the living and the dead was obliterated— as was the boundary between the sexes. Male youths would dress up as girls and vice versa, she wrote. In Wales, for example, groups of mischievous young men in Halloween drag were referred to as hags. In parts of Ireland, a man dressed as a white horse known as Lair Bhan—an ancient Celtic fertility symbol—led noisy processions at Samhain.
Many Samhain ensembles were incomplete without the appropriate accessories: lanterns made with hollowed-out turnips and candles. Later transplanted to North America with Irish immigrants, the tradition would be replicated in the fatter form of the pumpkin, a fruit native to the New World. [br] The knowledge about the ancient Halloween comes from the following EXCEPT______.
选项
A、historians’ introduction
B、factual and detailed records
C、today’s Halloween customs
D、books written by ancient Roman writers
答案
B
解析
细节题第二段第二句指出,我们并没有确切的记录来表明古代的万圣节究竟是什么样的,现代人对它的了解基本上是来自于一直延续至今的民间习俗,由此判断[B]为答案,同时排除[C]。第一段指出,几个世纪前的万圣节装束和现在的大相径庭,这是历史学家的描述,因此[A]‘‘历史学家的介绍”是古代万圣节知识的来源之一,故排除;第四段第一句指出,古罗马的作家曾经在书中提到过一些有关古代万圣节的习俗,因此[D]也可排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3860002.html
相关试题推荐
DuringWorldWarII,______,theprimeministeroftheU.K.,ledtheBritishpeo
Americanliteratureproducedonlyonefemalepoetduringthe19thcentury.Shew
ThenameofthegovernmentfortheSouthernStatesduringtheAmericanCivilWar
DuringtheCivilWarLincolnissuedthe______,whichdeclaredtheabolitionofs
HalloweenisaA、summerfestival.B、night-timefestivalC、sweethearts’holiday.D
PCindustryhasdevelopedrapidlyallovertheworldduringthepasttwentyyear
在我所待的3年半中,共有14位学生被招进他的实验室,最后博士毕业的只剩下5人。DuringthethreeandahalfyearsIstaye
Duringrecentyears,thefederalgovernmenthasbeenquitesuccessfulinreducin
DuringtheColonialdays,theIroquoishadanagriculturaleconomybasingmainly
Duringtheearlyyearsofthiscentury,wheatwasseenastheverylifebloo
随机试题
TheGreekshaveasecondBattleof.Marathonontheirhands.Theiradversarie
关于施工准备阶段的环境保护监理工作,说法正确的有( )。A.增加设计交底,熟悉环
《隔离开关分合闸位置“双确认”改造技术规范》中姿态传感系统,传感器与开关的联合检
在进行组织结构诊断时要分析组织关系,应清楚()。A:某个单位应同哪些单位和个人发
资本主义经济危机是生产相对过剩的危机,这个“相对”的对象是 A.劳动者的社会需
人在每一瞬间,将心理活动选择了某些对象而忽略了另一些对象。这一特点指的是注意的(
自身财务规划能力强的客户适用的还款方式是()。A.等额本金还款法 B.等
A.毛茛科 B.木通科 C.豆科 D.马兜铃科 E.茜草科降香原植物属于
(2020年真题)某企业A部门采用一一对比法对4名员工进行绩效考核,考核情况如下
下列不属于绩效考核的功能的是()。A.管理功能 B.心理援助功能 C.监控
最新回复
(
0
)