Carrying on the head is a common practice in many parts of the world as an alternative to carrying a burden on the back, shoulders and so on. People have carried burdens balanced on top of the head since ancient times, usually to do daily work, but sometimes in religious ceremonies or as a feat of skill, such as in certain dances.
Carrying on the head is common in many parts of the developing world, as only a simple length of cloth shaped into a ring or ball is needed to carry loads approaching the person's own weight. The practice is efficient, in a place or at a time when there are no vehicles or beasts of burden available for transporting the objects. Today, women and men carry burdens on their heads where there is no less expensive, or more efficient, way of transporting workloads. In India, women carry baskets of bricks to workmen on construction sites. [1] It is also used by the lowest caste to carry away human waste scooped out of pit latrines, the practice of manual scavenging. [2]
It is also wide-spread in Africa. Women in particular may have practical reasons for carrying on the head. For many African women it is "well-suited to the rough, rural terrain and the particular objects they carry—like buckets of water and bundles of firewood". The practice is usually not abandoned they migrate to urban areas where their daily routines, and socially accepted practices, are different. In Ghana, affluent residents of the southern cities employ young women who migrate from the poorer northern region to work as "head porters", called kayayei , for $2 a day. [3] In East Africa, Luo women may carry loads of up to 70% of their own body weight balanced on top of their heads. Women of the Kikuyu tribe carry similar heavy loads, but using a leather strap wrapped around their forehead and the load to secure it while it is carried. (see tumpline) This results in a permanent groove in the forehead of the women. However, there is no evidence of other harmful effects on the health of women who carry heavy loads on top of their heads. Researchers speculate that training from a young age may explain this. Up to 20% of the person's body weight can be carried with no extra exertion of energy. [4] Other researchers have shown that African and European women carrying 70% of their body weight in controlled studies used more oxygen while head-carrying, in contrast to carrying a load on their backs. The research did not support the notion that head-loading is less exerting than carrying on the back, "although there is some evidence of energy saving mechanisms for back-loading at low speed/load combinations". [5]
African-American women continued the practice during the 19th century, which they learned from their elders who had been enslaved from Africa. One observer during the American Civil War noted the impressive sense of balance and dexterity that the practice gave women in South Carolina: "I have seen a woman, with a brimming water-pail balanced on her head, or perhaps a cup, saucer, and spoon, stop suddenly, turn round, stoop to pick up a missile, rise again, fling it, light a pipe, and go through many revolutions with either hand or both, without spilling a drop". [6] Until the turn of the 20th century, African-American women in the Southern states continued carrying baskets and bundles of folded clothes on top of their heads, when they found work as washerwomen, doing laundry for white employers. This practice ended when the automobile became common in affluent communities, and employers began delivering the clothing to the homes of the washerwomen, rather than the workers coming to the employers' homes. [7]
Head-carrying was used in London's Covent Garden market in the late 19th century, with porters competing to carry up to 15 stacked baskets on their head. [8] In describing "the most cosmopolitan fruit market in the world" just before the Great Depression in the late 1920s, the United States department of Agriculture said the porters carried produce on their heads, backs, or in barrows. [9] Every day loads continued to be transported on the head into the 1950s, as shown in the documentary film Every Day Except Christmas .
There are several traditional dances of West African cultures that include balancing an object on the head as a skillful feat. Ritual dancing among worshippers of the thunder deity, Shango, sometimes balance a container of fire on their heads while dancing. The Egbado Yoruba have dances that include balancing "delicate terracotta figures" on the head while the arms and torso are moving. [10] This tradition continued among Africans taken to America during the Atlantic slave trade. African-Americans in the 19th century had a popular type of dance competition called "set the floor" ("set de flo'"), during which individual dancers would take turns dancing. Competing dancers would try to perform complicated steps given to them by a caller (usually a fiddler), without stepping outside the bounds of a circle drawn on the ground. To add to the challenge, some dancers would compete while balancing a glass full of water on top of their heads, trying not to spill the water while they danced. [10]
During the Victorian era, when finishing schools for young women were at their peak and manners and comportment were more rigid, young women were sometimes instructed to improve their posture by balancing books or a teacup and saucer on their heads while walking and getting up or down from a chair. They were told to model themselves after "the Egyptian water-carrier, with the jug of water poised so prettily on her head, and her figure so straight and beautiful". [11]
A porter, also called a bearer, is a person who carries objects or cargo for others. The range of services conducted by porters is extensive, from shuttling luggage aboard a train to bearing heavy burdens at altitude in inclement weather on multi-month mountaineering expeditions. They can carry items on their backs (backpack) or on their heads. The word "porter" derives from the Latin portare.
A cart or dray is a vehicle designed for transport, using two wheels and normally pulled by one or a pair of draught animals. A handcart is pulled or pushed by one or more people.
A backpack—also called knapsack, rucksack, rucksac, pack, sackpack, booksack, bookbag or backsack—is, in its simplest frameless form, a fabric sack carried on one's back and secured with two straps that go over the shoulders, but it can have an external frame, internal frame, and there are bodypacks.
A counterweight is a weight that, by applying an opposite force, provides balance and stability of a mechanical system. The purpose of a counterweight is to make lifting the load faster and more efficient, which saves energy and causes less wear and tear on the lifting machine.
Kottabos was a game of skill played at Ancient Greek and Etruscan symposia, especially in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. It involved flinging wine-lees (sediment) at a target in the middle of the room. The winner would receive a prize, comprising cakes, sweetmeats, or kisses.
A pannier is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from a Middle English borrowing of the Old French panier, meaning 'bread basket'.
Backpacking is the outdoor recreation of carrying gear on one's back while hiking for more than a day. It is often an extended journey and may involve camping outdoors. In North America, tenting is common, where simple shelters and mountain huts, widely found in Europe, are rare. In New Zealand, hiking is called tramping, and tents are used alongside a nationwide network of huts. Hill walking is equivalent in Britain, though backpackers make use of a variety of accommodation, in addition to camping. Backpackers use simple huts in South Africa. Trekking and bushwalking are other words used to describe such multi-day trips.
A pack animal, also known as a sumpter animal or beast of burden, is an individual or type of working animal used by humans as means of transporting materials by attaching them so their weight bears on the animal's back, in contrast to draft animals which pull loads but do not carry them.
Engine balance refers to how the forces are balanced within an internal combustion engine or steam engine. The most commonly used terms are primary balance and secondary balance. First-order balance and second-order balance are also used. Unbalanced forces within the engine can lead to vibrations.
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of people. Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the elements. Larger litters, for example those of the Chinese emperors, may resemble small rooms upon a platform borne upon the shoulders of a dozen or more people. To most efficiently carry a litter, porters either place the carrying poles directly upon their shoulders or use a yoke to transfer the load from the carrying poles to the shoulders.
In geotechnical engineering, drilling fluid, also known as drilling mud, is used to aid the drilling of boreholes into the earth. Often used while drilling oil and natural gas wells and on exploration drilling rigs, drilling fluids are also used for much simpler boreholes, such as water wells.
Manual scavenging is a term used mainly in India for "manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of, or otherwise handling, human excreta in an insanitary latrine or in an open drain or sewer or in a septic tank or a pit". Manual scavengers usually use hand tools such as buckets, brooms and shovels. The workers have to move the excreta, using brooms and tin plates, into baskets, which they carry to disposal locations sometimes several kilometers away. The practice of employing human labour for cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is also prevalent in Bangladesh and Pakistan. These sanitation workers, called "manual scavengers", rarely have any personal protective equipment. The work is regarded as a dehumanizing practice.
Weight distribution is the apportioning of weight within a vehicle, especially cars, airplanes, and trains. Typically, it is written in the form x/y, where x is the percentage of weight in the front, and y is the percentage in the back.
A Duluth pack is traditional portage pack used in canoe travel, particularly in the Boundary Waters region of northern Minnesota and the Quetico Provincial Park of Ontario. A specialized type of backpack, Duluth packs are made of heavy canvas, leather, and/or cordura nylon, and are nearly square in order to fit easily in the bottom of a canoe.
A tumpline is a strap attached at both ends to a sack, backpack, or other luggage and used to carry the object by placing the strap over the top of the head. This utilizes the spine rather than the shoulders as standard backpack straps do. Tumplines are not intended to be worn over the forehead, but rather over the top of the head just back from the hairline, pulling straight down in alignment with the spine. The bearer then leans forward, allowing the back to help support the load.
Kavadi Aattam is a ceremonial sacrifice and offering practiced by devotees during the worship of Murugan, the Hindu god of war. It is a central part of the festival of Thaipusam and emphasizes debt bondage. The Kavadi ("burden") itself is a physical burden, the bearing of which is used by the devotee to implore Murugan for assistance, usually on behalf of a loved one who is in need of healing, or as a means of balancing a spiritual debt. Devotees process and dance along a pilgrimage route while bearing these burdens.
Kayayei or Kaya Yei is a Ghanaian term for a female porter or bearer. Many of these women have migrated from a rural community to any of Ghana's urban cities in search of work. They generally carry their burdens on their heads.
A carrying pole, also called a shoulder pole or a milkmaid's yoke, is a yoke of wood or bamboo, used by people to carry a load. This piece of equipment is used in one of two basic ways:
A canoe pack, also known as a portage pack, is a specialized type of backpack used primarily where travel is largely by water punctuated by portages where the gear needs to be carried over land.
Human factors in diving equipment design are the influence of the interaction between the diver and the design of the equipment. The underwater diver relies on various items of diving and support equipment to stay alive and to perform the planned tasks during a dive. The design of the equipment can strongly influence its effectiveness in performing the desired functions.
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