The Order of the Arrow (OA), previously known as Wimachtendienk Wingolauchsik Witahemui (WWW) is the honor society of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), composed of Scouts and Scouters who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives as elected by their peers. Started as a Camp Fraternity by E. Urner Goodman, with the assistance of Carroll A. Edson, in 1915, its goal was to reinforce the Scout Oath and the Scout Law. Started without approval of Boy Scouts of America (BSA), it became an "Official Experiment" of the scouting organization. In 1948, following an extensive review, it officially became a program of Boy Scouts of America.
Ukrainian music covers diverse and multiple component elements of the music that is found in the Western and Eastern musical civilization. It also has a very strong indigenous Slavic and Christian uniqueness whose elements were used among the areas that surround modern Ukraine.
A bandura is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza. Early instruments had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes. In the 20th century, the number of strings increased initially to 31 strings (1926), then to 56 strings – 68 strings on modern "concert" instruments (1954).
The Brotherhood of Saint Mark was the name of the most important organization of German swordsmen in the 16th century.
A kobzar was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment, played on a multistringed kobza or bandura.
Blind musicians are singers or instrumentalists, or in some cases singer-accompanists, who are legally blind.
The lirnyks were itinerant Ukrainian musicians who performed religious, historical and epic songs to the accompaniment of a lira, the Ukrainian version of the hurdy-gurdy.
A skomorokh was a medieval East Slavic harlequin, or actor, who could also sing, dance, play musical instruments and compose for oral/musical and dramatic performances.
Bluffton University is a private Mennonite university in Bluffton, Ohio. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission, with three programs that have earned programmatic accreditation: education, nursing and social work. The university has more than ninety majors, minors, and interdisciplinary programs, and eighteen NCAA DIII athletic teams and a co-ed esports team.
Soviet kobzars were musicians in the Ukrainian SSR who performed at a stylised replacement for traditional Ukrainian kobzari, or bandurists. Bandurists were persecuted and executed in large numbers on the order of Stalin, who saw them as dangerous nationalists.
Purgatorial societies are Roman Catholic Church associations or confraternities which aim to assist souls in purgatory reach heaven. The doctrine concerning purgatory, the condition of the poor souls after death, the communion of saints, and the satisfactory value of our good works form the basis of these associations.
Kobzarskyi Tsekh, literally "Kobzar guild", is an organization of kobzars, which have existed since the 17th century in Ukraine.
Ostap Mykytovych Veresai was a renowned minstrel and kobzar from the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire. He helped to popularize kobzar art both within Ukraine and beyond. He is noted for influencing both scholarly and popular approaches to minstrelsy.
Terentiy (Tereshko) Makarovych Parkhomenko (1872–1910) was one of the most respected Ukrainian kobzars of the late 19th and early 20th century.
Petro Semenovych Drevchenko (1863–1934), also known by the surname of Drevkin and Drygavka, was a Ukrainian kobzar.
The lira, or relia, is a Ukrainian variant of the hurdy-gurdy, an instrument which can trace its history back to the 10th century. Regarding the origins of the lira in the region there are two schools of thought:
- The lira is an evolution of the medieval bowed lira of the Byzantine Empire, ancestor of most European bowed instruments. The Byzantine lira was possibly introduced into Ukraine through the various trade routes to Byzantium.
- The lira was introduced into Ukraine in the 17th century by Cossacks who had fought in France as mercenary soldiers.
A Kuban bandurists is a person who plays the Ukrainian plucked string instrument known as the bandura, who is from Kuban, a geographic region of southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River.
A fraternity or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in the Western concept developed in the Christian context, notably with the religious orders in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. The concept was eventually further extended with medieval confraternities and guilds. In the early modern era, these were followed by fraternal orders such as Freemasons and Odd Fellows, along with gentlemen's clubs, student fraternities, and fraternal service organizations. Members are occasionally referred to as a brother or – usually in a religious context – frater or friar.
The Cult of the Holy Spirit, also known as the Cult of the Empire of the Holy Spirit, is a religious sub-culture, inspired by Christian millenarian mystics, associated with Azorean Catholic identity, consisting of iconography, architecture, and religious practices that have continued in many communities of the archipelago as well as the broader Portuguese diaspora. Beyond the Azores, the Cult of the Holy Spirit is alive in parts of Brazil and pockets of Portuguese settlers in North America. The Cult of the Holy Spirit involves traditional rituals and religious celebrations of these faith communities.
The Brotherhood of Blackheads is an association of local unmarried male merchants, ship-owners, and foreigners that was active in Livonia from the mid-14th century till 1940 but still remains active in present-day Hamburg. The Brotherhood of Blackheads originated as a military organization, but the non-military aspects of the association gradually became more pronounced until the Brotherhood became a predominantly social organization after the end (1721) of the Great Northern War.