Product Code Database
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.
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 after migrating 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. 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 people tribe carry similar heavy loads, but using a leather strap wrapped around their forehead and the load to secure it while it is carried . 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. 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".
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". 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 Washerwoman, 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..]]
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. 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. Every day loads continued to be transported on the head into the 1950s, as shown in the documentary film Every Day Except Christmas.
|
|
