Walking tall around the world

With technology, some skills may be “endangered.” Dr Anjani Ganase looks at the traditions of stilt walking around the world, and celebrates the revival of Moko Jumbies.

The art of stilt walking was created by multiple cultures around the world for practical purposes. There were many advantages to being elevated, to be able to reach higher, see farther, wade deeper and move faster. In many places, the skills of stilt walking also drove the competitive and entertaining aspects of proving one’s skills, from which emerged the use of stilt walking in dance and games. Today, we may have moved beyond the need of the stilts as tools, but they continue to be used in lively art forms, with special appeal to youth. Here, in Trinidad and Tobago, our stilt walkers, the Moko Jumbies dare to go higher, and to move in more complex manners. Being among Moko Jumbies is mesmerizing, it’s like being among giants. Let’s dig into their history and find out what they represented.

Fire breathing Moko Jumbie: from the Moko Somokow band launch in Belmont. Photo by Anjani Ganase

China

In northern provinces of China, stilt walking was used for wading and fishing in the deep Liao River. They were also handy for fruit picking. At the same time, they were used in story telling and folklore. One story is of Yan Ying, a philosopher and minister (400 – 700 BC). When he was a boy, he was shorter than average and was teased for it. Yan Ying, however was also very clever, so one day he decided to make some stilts to make him stand taller than everyone else and therefore was able to return the taunts. His wit and cleverness made him a very successful minister but also very well liked by the people. In the Hebei Province, stilt walking was used to represent spirits in folklore. During a flood that nearly drowned a village, these spirits come down to part the water and keep the river from inundating the village.

Europe

Stilt walking was also used in different parts of Europe, including Germany and France. In the marshy waterlogged regions of the Netherlands, large square clogs were the solution for traversing mud and peat. However, in one region of France called Les Landes where the terrain was predominantly soggy marsh they decided to use stilts. As the land was difficult to traverse, the impoverished community used stilt walking for everyday activities, commuting, transporting goods and delivering post. Many of them were shepherds who used stilt walking to mind their flocks from a vantage point. They would have long wooden staffs to assist in corralling the sheep but also to comfortably perch on. The shepherds would also be able to look out wolves and roaming sheep. Stilt walking was taught from young. Children used them in their daily activity for their own games and even dancing. One famous Frenchman, Monsieur Sylvain Dorian, walked from Paris to Moscow, over 2000 km, in less than two months. It showed the speed and efficiency of stilt walking as a mode of transport during that time. Today in France, most of the stilt walking is used for festivals and to preserve the tradition. However, the Germans have begun to use stilt walking for practical purposes again, as modernised stilts are used for masonry work instead of the ladder. Such tasks include applying dry wall and working in hard to reach places.

Pacific

In the Polynesian island nations of the Pacific, stilt walking came about as idle fun for children. The stilts were basic and made from branches, where the footrests would occur at a knotty junction of a branch. The stilts were also constructed differently as the feet were closer to the ground, and the poles extend upwards beyond the footrests so that the stilt walker has poles to hold on to; this requires hand and foot coordination for stability. Marquesas Islands has a more ornate version of the stilt with carvings done into the wood. The stilts were also made up of two parts, the foot part which raises the walker about a foot off the ground, and the detachable poles which are used for stability.

Moko Jumbie from the Moko Somokow band 2020. Photo by Anjani Ganase

Africa

Traditional ceremonies are centred on stilt walking and dancing in West Africa. The Gue Pelou is a sacred dance done in the Cote D’Ivoire, where the dancer on stilts communicates with the spirit that watches over the villages through song and dance. Accompanied by drumming, stilt walkers stand 8 – 10 feet above the ground. At this elevation, expert walkers are capable of effortless movement - twirling, flipping and performing splits on the ground. Similar dances on stilts are found in Mali, Guinea and Nigeria. It is from here that Caribbean people have inherited the tradition of stilt walking; from ancestors who were brought to the new world during the slave trade.

Caribbean/ Americas

It is said that Moko Jumbies arrived in Trinidad and Tobago by walking across the Atlantic from West Africa. This is the origin of the character of the Moko Jumbie, where Moko is term for an Orisha God or Healer and Jumbie means spirit or ghost. Similar to the West African folklore and adapted in the Caribbean, the Moko Jumbies were god-like protectors that watched over us; you would never want to cross a Moko Jumbie. The Moko Jumbies come out during the carnival season and was revived during the 1980s and again in the 2000s. Today the characters of the Moko Jumbie are reinvented every year with new stories and costumes each season.

In the early 1980s, Glen “Dragon” de Souza founded the Keylemanjahro School to “revive the almost-forgotten West African tradition” of the ‘dancing spirits’ and return them in Carnival. (Ref: Moko Jumbies by Stefan Falke). In 2016, Carnival designer Peter Minshall created The Dying Swan – Ras Nijinsky in Drag as Pavlova, dancing on stilts. Other “schools” to teach stilt walking have emerged such as 1000 Mokos. The traditional band Moko Somokow (or moko family) comes out of Belmont with designs by Alan Vaughn; this year they have created a family of Barons based on the Haitian traditions; Baron Samedi (and his incarnations Baron Cimitiere, Baron La Croix) channels the spirits of the dead..

In Carnival, at least, the Moko Jumbies walk like gods among the bands. They raise our eyes and uplift our spirits.