Read the following passage easefully :
Adoration by Man
Other animals move about the world as nature made them. Why then, did man start to adorn himself by hanging things round the neck, arms, waist and legs or putting things on his head.
(1) We can imagine many reasons. If an exceptionally strong or brave man succeeded in killing an exceptionally large bear, might he not get the idea of boring a hole through one of its teeth with a sharp flint and adorning the tooth round his neck in order to remind himself of his great achievement and to show his friends what a great man he was ? Gradually, it might have become the custom in that tribe for all strong and brave hunters to wear a bear's tooth, and it might be regarded as a disgrace not to wear one and a sign that one was weak or very young.
(2) Another man might make an ornament of a coloured shell or stone simply because he liked it or because its shape reminded him of something. Then, if he happened to escape from some danger when he was wearing it he might think the ornament had something to do with it- that it had magic qualifies. And his friends and relations would not be satisfied until they had an ornament of the same kind.
(3) People who wear ornaments would soon learn to arrange them in different ways according to their size and colour in order to make them more decorative and impressive. A necklace found in Italy with the skeleton of young man of the Stone Age was quite elaborate. It consisted of stag's teeth arranged at intervals with, between them, two upper rows made up of the vertebrae of a fish and rosy of shells.
(4) Another reason why men might tie feathers, horns, skins and all kinds of other things to themselves, would be in order to make themselves look fierce and more terrifying to animals or to the men of other tribes.
(5) Objects such as sea-shells that came from a distance and were therefore, scarce for people living far inland—would come in time to have a special value and might be worn only by chiefs and their families in order to show that they were particularly important people.
(6) Primitive tribes living today often associate themselves with some particular animal or bird, such as an eagle or lion, or with a particular place, such as a mountain or river. Man may have started doing this kind of thing very early in his history. Then, every member of a group of family may have worn something such as feathers, claws or even a stone or svmden object of a certain shape or colour, to represent the animal or mountain or whatever it might be that they believed themselves to be connected with
(7) So, as we have seen, clothing may have started as ornament or to distinguish one tribe from another or to show rank or because certain things were believed to have magical qualities. However, in some places a time came when men and women began to wear clothes for other reasons. During the ice age, when the polar ice spread over far more areas of the world than it does today, some of the districts in which human beings were living became very cold and indeed. Man must have learnt that he would be more comfortable and more likely to survive, if he covered his body with the skins of animals. At that perphaps, he would simply tie a skin round his waist or over his shoulders but as time passed he learnt how to treat skin in order to make them softer and more tender and how to join them together in order to make better garments.
(8) Flint tools have been found buried deep under the earth floors of caves in which pre-historic men sheltered when the weather became colder. Some of the tools were probably used to scrape the inner side of skins to make them soft_ Stone Age people may also have softened skins in the same way that Eskimo women do today, by chewing them. The teeth of Eskimo women are often worn down to stumps by the constant chewing of seal skins.
(9) Among the wonderful flint and bone tools and implements that later cave-men made, have been found some beautiful bone needles, some not bigger than those we use today. Although the people who made them had only flint tools to work with, some of the needles are finer and more beautifully shaped than those of Roman times.
(A) On the basis of your reading of the above passage, complete the following statements
briefly :
(a) How did man start to adorn himself ? (2)
(b) What was the speciality about the necklace found in Italy ? (2)
(c) Why did man tie feather and skin to himself ? (2)
(d) What did man realize during the ice age ? (2)
(B) Find the words from the above passage which mean the same as the following :
x 4 4 marks)
(e) Decorative object : (pars 2) (1)
(i) shell (ii) ornament
(iii) magic (iv) stone
(f) In detail : (para 3) (1)
(i) elaborate (ii) arrange
(iii) impressive (iv) mw
(,g) Relating to the earliest times : (pare 6) (1)
(i) tribes (ii) particular
(iii) primitive (iv) connected
(10 Rub against a hard surface : (1)
(i) scrape (11) flint
(iii) stumps (iv) implement
Answers
(A) (a) Man started to adorn himself by hanging things around his neck, arms, waist and legs or by putting things on his head.
(b) It consisted of stag's teeth arranged at intervals with two upper rows made up of the vertebrae of a fish and one row of shells.
(c) Man tied feather and skin to himself so that he could look fiercer and more terrifying to animals or to the men of other tribes.
(d) During the ice age, man realised that he would be more comfortable and more likely to survive if eh covered his body with the skins of animals.
(B) (e) (ii) ornament
(f) (i) elaborate
(g) (iii) primitive
(h) (i) scrapeAnswer:
Passage Answers
Explanation:
(A) (a) Man began to adorn himself by balancing things around his neck, arms, midsection and legs or by putting things on his head.
(b) It comprised of stag's teeth organized at spans with two upper lines comprised of the vertebrae of a fish and one column of shells.
(c) Man attached quill and skin to himself so he could look fiercer and more startling to creatures or to the men of different clans.
(d) During the ice age, man understood that he would be more agreeable and bound to get by if eh covered his body with the skins of creatures.
(B) (e) - (ii) ornament
(f) - (i) elaborate
(g) - (iii) primitive
(h) - (i) scrape
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