Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things Read Online Free PDF Page B

(though incorrectly interpreted) that a newborn, struggling to survive, yawns shortly after birth (a reflexive response to draw additional oxygen into the lungs). With infant mortality extraordinarily high, early physicians, at a loss to account for frequent deaths, blamed the yawn. The helpless baby simply could not cover its mouth with a protective hand. Roman physicians actually recommended that a mother be particularly vigilant during the early months of life and cover any of her newborn’s yawns.

    An ancient belief that the breath of life might escape the body during a yawn established the custom of covering the mouth .
    Today it is also considered good manners when yawning to turn one’s head. But courtesy had nothing to do with the origin of the custom, nor with the apology that follows a yawn. Ancient man had also accurately observed that a yawn is contagious to witnesses. Thus, if a yawn was dangerous to the yawner, this danger could be “caught” by others, like the plague. The apology was for exposing friends to mortal danger.
    Modern science has explained the yawn as the body’s sudden need for a large infusion of oxygen, especially on awakening, when one is physically exhausted, and in the early stages of strenuous exercise. But there still is no physiological accounting for the contagiousness of yawning. We know only that the sight of a person yawning goes to the visual center of the brain and from there is transmitted to the yawn center. Why such a particular pathway should exist is as mysterious to us today as was the yawn itself to ancient man.

Chapter 2
    By Custom
    Marriage Customs: A.D . 200, Northern Europe
    Among the Germanic Goths, a man married a woman from within his own community. When women were in short supply, he captured his bride-to-be from a neighboring village. The future bridegroom, accompanied by a male companion, seized any young girl who had strayed from the safety of her parental home. Our custom of a best man is a relic of that two-man, strong-armed tactic; for such an important task, only the best man would do.
    From this practice of abduction, which literally swept a bride off her feet, also sprang the later symbolic act of carrying the bride over the threshold of her new home.
    A best man around A.D . 200 carried more than a ring. Since there remained the real threat of the bride’s family’s attempting to forcibly gain her return, the best man stayed by the groom’s side throughout the marriage ceremony, alert and armed. He also might serve as a sentry outside the newlyweds’ home. Of course, much of this is German folklore, but it is not without written documentation and physical artifacts. For instance, the threat of recapture by the bride’s family was perceived as so genuine that beneath the church altars of many early peoples—including the Huns, the Goths, the Visigoths, and the Vandals—lay an arsenal of clubs, knives, and spears.
    The tradition that the bride stand to the left of the groom was also morethan meaningless etiquette. Among the Northern European barbarians (so named by the Romans), a groom placed his captured bride on his left to protect her, freeing his right hand, the sword hand, against sudden attack.
    Wedding Ring: 2800 B.C ., Egypt
    The origin and significance of the wedding ring is much disputed. One school of thought maintains that the modern ring is symbolic of the fetters used by barbarians to tether a bride to her captor’s home. If that be true, today’s double ring ceremonies fittingly express the newfound equality of the sexes.
    The other school of thought focuses on the first actual bands exchanged in a marriage ceremony. A finger ring was first used in the Third Dynasty of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, around 2800 B.C . To the Egyptians, a circle, having no beginning or end, signified eternity—for which marriage was binding.
    Rings of gold were the most highly valued by wealthy Egyptians, and later Romans. Among numerous