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Stilt Ball

2008-11-05 16:34 COC

About

During the Southern Song Dynasty, according to a folktale in Nandan County in Guangxi, there was a pomelo orchard which was often plundered and caused much bloodshed when the fruit ripened in autumn in 1106, the magistrate organized a contest in which one who kicked a pomelo to the longest distance or at a target would be awarded a prize. Since then no plunder has happened again and the competition has become a favourite team sport among the local Zhuangs. The game is held on a field, the size of a basketball court, with the five players on both sides moving on stilts fitted with a footrest 30cm above the ground. As in soccer, they dribble, pass and drive the ball with the poles of stilts in order to get it into the opponents' goal without a tender. One who touches the ground with his feet is suspended for two minutes like a minor penalty in ice hockey. There's s similar sport among the Tujias in Hunan Province, with only two players--- a man and a woman, or husband and wife---on both sides moving on stilts in a smaller field, the ball kicked about being, of all things on earth, an embroidered shoe worn by a bride!