WALKING ON STILTS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 10, 12 January 1929, Page 18

WALKING ON STILTS

AN ANCIENT PASTIME

The stilt-walking sandwich man still has his day ia the street. He has traditions behind him. Walking on stilts is a fad that does not die with the ages. On the tomb of one of the oldestVharaohs is a crude bas-relief depicting a court procession. The procession is led by a trumpeter who is perched on high stilts. ' ■' •* •' ' Every,'.nation; in fact, has had its expert stilt walkers. In China and Japan'the fad-is popular with youths, some ..of whom are., so adept in this mode of walking that they, requite no -supports or uprights to steady them. Instead :of the familiar side-blocks the Chinese and Japanese youths have foot rests, bn the. stilt sticks, which project backward. ..The stilt walker is alwaysbarefoot, in order that he may grasp the stilt stick with his toes. In Southern France stilts are more than fads.," There they aro . used almost continuously by tho shepherds, who have to-, keep watch over large Hocks'. of sheep as, well-, as to pass through bogs. The stilts'are usually from six to ■ eight feet high, and-'are strapped tightly to the' knees. ■ Both men and -women in that part of the country are expert stilt walkers.'.'. In their .'hands'.' they hold a long'sf;ick or cane as a support. So accustomed are these people .to the stilts that shopheddesses have been known to knit socks while walking on them. A frequent pastime of•these people are stilt races, and not a holiday passes without a stilt, contest of some-sort. One contest recently was; won by a boy and a girl,' each fourteen years old.: The older ioik also participated in this iace ( and the third to come in

was a shepherd whose ago was : about seventy. . ... : ' . Cruder and more barbaric contests on stilts are those held by tile natives of.-the islands in the Southern Pacific. A band of. from fifteen to twenty young men, • with ttheir ..faces' painted : in .grotesque ■designsj'.. perch; themselves. 1' on high stilts'and engage in a free-for-all fight, in which they try to trip and knock one another down. In Spain no parade'is complete without its contingent of stilt walkers, who are attired in. colourful masquerade costumes.