Why does our country have the custom of walking on stilts?

Walking on stilts is one of the traditional folk activities of the Han nationality. Walking on stilts, commonly known as tying firewood feet, also known as "stilts", "walking on stilts", "tying high feet" and "walking high legs", is a popular folk performance. In some folk festivals, dancers usually perform in the square with long wooden stilts tied to their feet. Walking on stilts is skillful and lively. Because stilts are taller than ordinary people, they are easy to watch from far and near, and their mobility is no different from that of the activity stage, so they are deeply loved by the masses.

One legend is that ...

There is a folklore that Yan Ying, who was famous for his antics during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, once went to a neighboring country, and the neighboring countries laughed at his short stature. He put on a Shuang Mu leg and suddenly became taller, which made the monarch and ministers of this country feel ashamed. He also used this topic to give satirical speeches to foreign ministers of various countries, which still embarrassed them. Accordingly, stilt walking activities spread among the people. Another legend is that walking on stilts is related to cracking down on corrupt officials. Once upon a time, there was a county called Liang Jincheng. People inside and outside the city are very friendly. Every Spring Festival, they hold a social fire together to wish each other a prosperous business and a bumper harvest. Unexpectedly, a corrupt official took this as an opportunity to get rich, saying that everyone who went in and out of the city to run a social fire had to pay San Qian money. If people don't pay, he will close the city gate and hang the suspension bridge. But it's still hard for smart people to walk on stilts. Climb over the city wall, cross the moat, continue to celebrate the Spring Festival and enjoy it.

origin

As for the origin of stilts, scholars believe that it is related to the totem worship of primitive clans and the fishing life of coastal fishermen. According to historians' research, the Danzhu clan, which took cranes as totems in the Yao and Shun era, danced on stilts during sacrifices to imitate cranes. (See Sun Zuoyun's Talk about Dani); Archaeologists believe that there are characters in ancient Oracle Bone Inscriptions that approximate the image of walking on stilts. (Fang Qidong's Dance of Shang Dynasty in Oracle Bone Inscriptions) The two can prove each other. There is a description of "long-share country" in the ancient document Shan Hai Jing. According to the notes of the ancients, we can know that the "long-share country" is related to walking on stilts. From the notes that "long-legged people often take long-armed people to fish in the sea", it is not difficult to imagine the image of fishing in shallow water with long wooden stakes tied to their feet and primitive fishing tools made of long wood. More interestingly, the Jing fishermen who live along the coast of Fangcheng in Guangxi today still have the habit of fishing with long clogs in shallow waters. With regard to the origin of stilts, the late historian Sun Zuoyun (A.D. 19 12 ~ 1978) put forward that stilts originated from cranes for the first time in the article "On Danzhu —— A study of ancient crane families in China ——— On the totem of stilts dancing", based on the ancient literature such as Shan Hai Jing. Guo Pu, a native of A Jin, commented: "Or there is a country of Qiao, and today a musician's Qiao built this statue." Wu Renchen commented: "When a Qiao plays, two pieces of wood continue to be sufficient, which is called stilts." Both kinds of notes think that long-legged Chinese are long-legged people tied to their feet with wooden stilts. In Talking about Dani, it is believed that stilts originated from the primitive totem belief and were used in religious sacrificial ceremonies, and then evolved from acrobatic performances to dance forms that played opera characters. Danzhu in the Yao and Shun period was a clan with cranes as its totem, and stilt play directly originated from the dance of the ancient crane totem clan. Recently, some scholars believe that there is a word in Oracle Bone Inscriptions that can be interpreted as "dancing like a person dancing with a stick". If it were established, this unique folk stilt dance form would have come out in the late Shang Dynasty at the latest. This is a supplement from totem worship. Moreover, in the religious ceremony of tchokwe tribe in Zaire, Africa, there is also a performance of walking on stilts. A wizard walked slowly with long wooden stilts tied to his legs and danced slowly with his hands. This is another evidence of "totem worship theory" and "religious ceremony theory" walking on stilts.

Art originates from nature, but actually walking on stilts is the product of the struggle between human beings and natural conditions. The origin of labor theory can be based on another note by Guo Pu: Long-arm China people have the same body as ordinary people, but their arms are three feet long. "In other words, long-legged people often carry long-armed people to go fishing in the sea." From this, it is associated with wooden stilts with long feet and long hands, and depicts the image of Jing fishermen who live in the "three islands of Jing nationality" in Fangcheng, Guangxi, stepping on wooden stilts and casting nets in shallow water to fish. According to 1930' s Art Style magazine, "Chopsticks Street and Tielong Street in Wuchang are often flooded because of their low status. Whenever they are flooded, almost all the residents there walk on stilts. This is a stilt from work and life records.