[ppi] [ppiindia] Invention of bed led to new group sleeping therapy

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http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/08-03-2006/77009-bed-0


      Invention of bed led to new group sleeping therapy 
     
     
     
      Long ago, it was believed that sleeping in large groups was safer for 
people. Even today, some African, Guinean and Australian tribes maintain the 
tradition of group sleeping. At night, entire tribes get placed in big 
buildings constructed especially for sleeping. These tribes believe that sounds 
made by groups of sleepers - snoring, breathing and baby cries - may scare off 
demons of night. This is also the reason why domestic animals are often allowed 
to spend nights indoors. Animals are believed to be able to warn of evil forces 
coming from the other world. 

      So, at the dawn of the human civilization people slept in groups 
immediately on the ground covered with grass, twigs or animal skins. The 
situation changed when people began to build houses and organized special rooms 
for sleeping in their houses. It first happened in Sumer about 5,000 years ago. 
In bedrooms, Sumer, Assyrian and Egyptian aristocracy arranged special hard and 
narrow couches for sleeping. 

      But ancient Romans did not like the asceticism. Effeminate patricians 
liked comfortable sleeping, and consequently invented beds. Their first beds 
were eminences covered with gorgeous clothes and furs. Deputies were basically 
these effeminate patricians. They visited territories conquered by Romans and 
spread their own traditions, habits and household goods there. But prostrate 
Gauls, Teutons, Saxons and Brits did not adopt the Roman bed and still slept on 
the ground. 

      The situation changed in the Middle Ages when construction of stone 
buildings and castles began in Europe. Because of draughts that spread about 
the floors of buildings people made their beds higher. This is how first beds 
on pedestals appeared, and then people even made beds where one could sleep 
after climbing a staircase. Soon, beds turned into pieces of art: they were 
made of precious woods, covered with intricate carving and decorated with 
various figures. Such beds often became trophies of war. 

      Romans often made semi-transparent curtains around their beds to get 
protected from insects. In medieval Europe, the light bed curtain got 
transformed into a valance that enveloped beds from every side and protected 
form insects and cold. At that, valances gave the illusion of solitude to 
couples even when there were many people in the room. Rich families spent much 
money on making valances of gorgeous fabrics and decorated with gold 
embroideries. Families with lower incomes had valances made of simple light 
fabric. 

            In Russia, first beds appeared in the early 17th century and got 
widely spread in the country under Peter the Great's rule. The tsar demanded 
that people should wear not only European clothing but also arrange their 
houses according to European standards. However, the innovation concerned just 
courtiers while peasant families still slept on polati that were high boards of 
wood. The Russian furnace was considered the cosiest place in the house, and 
sleeping on it was the privilege of elderly, little children and ill people 
only. Other members of big peasant families slept on polati. And this tradition 
was maintained by many peasant families until the 20th century. 

            Families of merchant had a definite set of furniture in their 
bedrooms: a bed, a china cabinet and a silver samovar. Everything that a family 
had in the bedroom was traditionally the wife's dowry. Parents made huge soft 
down-beds of down and lots of light pillows. Usually, mothers started making 
the dowry for their daughters soon after they were born. 

            Even though Russians are Christians they still often revealed pagan 
beliefs and fears. For instance, Russians believed that wood spirits, bogies 
and mermen actually existed, and that is why Russians never slept in beds with 
their legs directed toward the entrance. Otherwise they believed that evil 
forces could take sleeping people out of the house. 

            At that, some of the old Russian traditions agree with some Chinese 
ones. It was believed that a place in the house where a cat lies is the best 
for arranging a bed. The cat was the symbol of fertility in Russia that is why 
a place it indicated in the house guaranteed that a couple would have healthy 
and strong babies. In China, it was believed that cats can find the positive 
energy epicenter that was important for couples. 

            Alla Steblova 

            Translated by Maria Gousseva 
           

     
     


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