How Did It Start?
One of the legends has it that it all started in 1370 in a region of southern Italy called Taranto. Out in the fields workers were being bitten by what was believed to be tarantulas. If left untreated a human could die from the spider sickness. Then someone stumbled onto a cure – music and dancing.
That’s right, if the victim would dance vigorously for three to four hours and sweat… a lot, then the disease would be considered cured. Violin players were known to travel throughout the countryside in hopes of being hired to play energetic melodies so those bitten would have something to dance to.
Down in a region called Sardinia the cure was even stranger. The poor victim would be buried up to his neck in garbage, and then seven women would dance around his head. When he finally began laughing he was considered cured. If he never laughed, well, let’s just say things didn’t look too good for him.
Today it is believed that instead of spider bites, the dancing really came about because many people were sad or depressed. You see, back then most people had very hard lives surrounded by disease, war and strict rules about how they could and could not have fun. The spider bites seemed to be a clever excuse to have a good time. Over time what started as an unusual “cure” for a deadly disease grew into a traditional dance that has been passed down through many generations of humans.
Something to Think About.
As you can see, traditions can start from just about anything. But for a tradition to stick around and become…well, a tradition it has to be something that humans enjoy doing on a regular basis, or it creates a sense of special meaning or a feeling of community.
What is a tradition that you take part in? Do you know where the tradition came from? Is there someone you can ask that might know more about the history of the tradition? If not, can you come up with possible reasons why this tradition is so important and how it might have started? In fact it could be a lot of fun to create a story from scratch that explains in a creative, wild or unusual way how your tradition came about.
Did You Think We Were Kidding?
Here’s where you cans see some of those strange inventions we mentioned along with a video of The Tarantella: