Re: kazoo!

[Tom Brady <tabrady@mindspring.com>]

Poster: Tom Brady <tabrady@mindspring.com>

At 12:30 PM 9/16/97 -0400, Henry Best wrote:
>And Brigantia said:
>>         Yes!! I've wondered for the past 2 years if kazoos were period. My
>> warped reasoning is that they're possible since people were probably making
>> grass types (where you hold grass between thumbs and blow) since antiquity.
>
>Dear lady, we can't just guess. We have to have some kind of
>documentation. Otherwise, we are OOP and agents of Evil instead of Good.

Let's see...a quick search of the web (Look, kids, it Research Lite! :-) on
the history of kazoos turned this up from Rick Hubbard's Kazoobie! page
(http://www.kazoobie.com/kazoofax.htm):
>The Kazoo is a manufactured version of an Afro-American folk instrument, 
>U.S. in origin. It is based on the African mirliton, a mysterious instrument 
>used in sacred ceremonies as voice disguisers.
>
>It is believed that the first American Kazoo was created in the 1840's in 
>Macon, Georgia, by Alabama Vest, an American black, and Thaddeus Von 
>Clegg, a German clockmaker. It was reported to have been exhibited at the 
>Georgia State Fair in 1852.

Not much else to be had, except to note that "mirliton" appears to be a
cheat password for Lemmings 3D (and they say you can't find useful
information on the web!)

-Duncan, will websurf for food
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Brady    tabrady@mindspring.com   SCA: Duncan MacKinnon of Tobermory
 See my web pages for links to the Society for Creative Anachronism and 
      gay and lesbian info: http://www.technomancer.com/~duncan/
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