What are the origin stories of stilts?

There are two kinds of Northeast Rice-planting Songs, one is in the flat ground twisting performance called "ground bungee", also known as "ground rice-planting song"; one is tied to the high wooden legs of the performance, known as "stepping on stilts". A kind of performance with high wooden legs is called "stilt-walking". The stilt-walking is depicted in ancient literature about the Bohai Kingdom.

The highlight of the rice-planting songs is the stilts, commonly known as the "stilts". The stilt stick is two to three feet long, and the stilts are also used in rice-planting steps and formations, and are good for twisting quickly and cheerfully. Liaonan stilts are complete in form and standardized in performance. At the beginning, the stilts should first "take the phase" (stacked up in two layers) and sing the rice-planting song, which means "peace has an elephant"; while running a big field to change the formation pattern, and then grouping to perform the duo dance, "butterfly" and "fisherman's dance". Butterflies", "fishing" and playing characters in folk theater.

The stilts are performed on wooden stilts, which are higher than the general performance on the flat ground, and can be viewed from a distance, which is very popular among the public, and the stilts have gradually formed and flourished. Some highly skilled artists, in addition to performances at annual festivals and temple fairs, specialized groups to perform in near villages and counties, and accept invitations to perform in foreign countries, and from the countryside into the city. Everywhere on stilts rendered their own local color, famous artists gradually formed their own style of school, some of them became professional stilt walkers. In order to compete for the top, to meet the needs of the show, the artists also widely absorbed rice-planting songs, two-people turn and review the skills of the opera to enrich the performance, and hire good musicians to accompany, dance and music fusion, like a fish out of water, dance skills can be given full play. The artistry of stilts is constantly improved by the hard work and practice of the artists.

En Zhuqiao of the Qing Dynasty wrote a poem titled "Singing Rice-planting Songs":

The stilts are actually higher than the team,

The stilts should be fast enough to link up with the Cao.

Laughing at his unfounded footing,

he also walked on earth for a while.

On the origin of the stilts, scholars mostly believe that it is related to the totem worship of the primitive clans and the fishing life of the coastal fishermen. According to historians, the Danzhu clan, which used the crane as a totem during the Yao and Shun eras, had to dance on stilts to imitate cranes in their rituals. Archaeologists believe that there are already words resembling the image of dancing on stilts in the ancient A-text. The two can be corroborated with each other.

The origin of the stilts labor said, can be based on Jin Guo Pu's another note: long arm of the country people in the east of Chishui, the body like a normal person, but the arm length of three feet. Or said, long-footed people often negative long arm people into the sea fishing also. The long feet are tied to wooden stilts, and the long arms are fishing tools made of long wood, depicting the image of the Jing fishermen who now live on the "Three Islands of the Jing Clan" in Fangcheng, Guangxi, casting nets in the shallow sea on wooden stilts.

Ancient literature about stilts, "Lie Zi - Said Fu Chuan" recounts a man called Lan Zi, who performed stilts for Song Yuan Gong, with two wooden sticks (stilts) twice as long as his body tied to his calves, ran and jumped quickly and threw seven short swords into the air in a cycle, five of which were always in the air, and Yuan Gong was very surprised after seeing them. This story shows that stilts were already a kind of acrobatics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and had a high level of skill.

The excavated tombstone of the Northern Wei Dynasty on the "Hundred Plays" also has the image of "Qiaoren", which can be seen in the stilts of the long history.

Qing Dynasty Stilts

The evolution of the stilts from acrobatics to play the role of the evolution of the stilts in different eras of the name of the stilts, indicating that it is from acrobatics to play the evolution of the characters of the opera. Before and after the Wei and Jin dynasties, the "Qiaoren" was a transition from totem worship to acrobatics, and the amazing skill of the stilts, though mysterious, was already a form of performance. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, stilts were called "long stilts", which can be seen as an entertaining form of performance. In the Southern Song Dynasty, "stilt walking" and "village music" and "butterfly fluttering" appeared together in Lin'an Lantern Festival, indicating that it had become a folk dance. Ming and Qing literature records, stilts often combined with rice-planting songs to play opera characters, called "rice-planting songs on stilts". The performance is divided into cultural and martial stilts: cultural stilts emphasize twisting, teasing, or performing small plays with simple plots; martial stilts emphasize individual skills, such as "one-legged jump", "tiger pouncing", "splitting", and "crossing obstacles". "over the barrier" "jumping high table" and so on.