46 What is the main idea of this passage?
(A) Carnival is almost everywhere in the world, from Europe to America.
(B) Carnival originated from the Europe and mixed with African and Caribbean elements.
(C) African dance and music traditions transformed the early carnival celebrations in the Americas.
(D) Carnival encourages self-expression and exploration and contributes to the cosmopolitan concept.

 Carnival is an annual celebration of life found in many countries of the world.狂歡節是世界許多國家一年一度的慶祝活動。

Hundreds of years ago, thefollowers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before thefirst day of Lent.數百年前，義大利天主教徒在四旬齋開始前舉辦盛大的化裝節，開啟了這項傳統。

Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale— which means “to put away the meat.”因為天主教徒在四旬齋期間不應該吃肉，所以他們把他們的節日稱為狂歡節——意思是「放下肉」。

As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact thepractice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. 隨著時間的推移，義大利的狂歡節聲名遠播；事實上，這項習俗傳播到了法國、西班牙以及歐洲所有天主教國家。

Then as the French, Spanish, andPortuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their traditionof celebrating carnival.後來，隨著法國、西班牙和葡萄牙逐漸掌控美洲和世界其他地區，他們也將慶祝狂歡節的傳統帶到了那裡。

        The dynamic economic and political history of the Caribbean are indeed the ingredients of festival arts as wefind them today throughout the African and Caribbean Diaspora. 加勒比地區充滿活力的經濟和政治歷史，的確是如今遍布非洲和加勒比僑民社區的節慶藝術的組成部分。

Important to Caribbean festival arts are the ancientAfrican traditions of parading and moving in circles through villages in costumes and masks. 在加勒比海地區的節慶藝術中，古老的非洲傳統——身著盛裝、頭戴面具，在村莊中繞圈遊行——佔據著重要的地位。

Circling villages wasbelieved to bring good fortune, to heal problems, and chill out angry relatives who had died and passed into the nextworld. 人們相信繞村遊行能帶來好運，治癒疾病，並安撫已故親人的怒氣。

Feathers were frequently used by Africans in their motherland on masks and headdresses as a symbol of ourability as humans to rise above problems, pains, heartbreaks, illness — to travel to another world to be reborn andto grow spiritually. 在非洲大陸，人們經常在面具和頭飾上使用羽毛，象徵人類有能力超越困境、痛苦、心碎和疾病——前往另一個世界獲得重生，並在精神上成長。

Today, we see feathers used in many, many forms in creating carnival costumes.如今，我們看到羽毛以各種各樣的形式被用於製作狂歡節服裝。

         In many parts of the world, where Catholic Europeans set up colonies and entered into the slave trade, carnivaltook root. 在世界許多天主教歐洲人建立殖民地並進行奴隸貿易的地方，狂歡節紮根發展。

Carnival celebrations are now found throughout the Caribbean, in Central and South America, and inlarge cities in Canada and the U.S. where Caribbean people have settled.如今，狂歡節的慶祝活動遍布加勒比海地區、中美洲和南美洲，以及加拿大和美國加勒比裔人口聚居的大城市。
        For African people, carnival became a way to express their power as individuals, as well as their rich culturaltraditions. 對非洲人民而言，狂歡節既是展現個人力量的途徑，也是傳承豐富文化傳統的載體。

Carnival arts offer all of us a dynamic tool for self-expression and exploration, a tool to seek out ourroots, a tool to develop new forms of looking at the world and its cultures, and finally, a tool to unite the world, todiscover what we all have in common, and to celebrate what makes us different.狂歡節藝術為我們所有人提供了一種動態的自我表達和探索工具，一種尋找我們根源的工具，一種發展看待世界及其文化的新方式的工具，最終，一種團結世界、發現我們共同之處、慶祝我們彼此差異的工具。