RWA - Head Carrying
Based on studies of women of the Luo and Kikuyu tribes of East Africa, researchers have found that people can carry loads of up to 20 percent of their own body weight without expending any extra energy beyond what they’d use by walking around unencumbered. For heavier loads there was a proportional increase in energy consumption, that is, a 30% load increased energy consumption by 10%, a 40% load by 20% and so on.
The African women are taught the skill of carrying loads on their heads at the early ages. In some communities in Africa, girls, learns this around the ages of 6 to 8 and beyond. But, when they passes the ages of 15 without knowing how to carry something on their heads; they would never learn it again.
For untrained people who have not had years to strengthen the right muscles and build up spinal bone density, carrying things on your head actually requires more energy than using a backpack.
According to one study, many Xhosa women in South Africa employ head-loading because it happens to be well-suited to the rough, rural terrain and the particular objects they carry—like buckets of water and bundles of firewood. But when they move to more urbanized areas, they ditch the practice.
And this practice was common also in Europe in pre-industrial times.
The earliest English example is in the Luttrell Psalter, an exceptionally revealing illuminated manuscript from the early fourteenth century, now owned by the British Library. Among its many scenes of agricultural life is one of sheep being milked in a pen, whilst two women walk away with pots on their heads, presumably carrying the milk back to the farm.
Read MoreThe African women are taught the skill of carrying loads on their heads at the early ages. In some communities in Africa, girls, learns this around the ages of 6 to 8 and beyond. But, when they passes the ages of 15 without knowing how to carry something on their heads; they would never learn it again.
For untrained people who have not had years to strengthen the right muscles and build up spinal bone density, carrying things on your head actually requires more energy than using a backpack.
According to one study, many Xhosa women in South Africa employ head-loading because it happens to be well-suited to the rough, rural terrain and the particular objects they carry—like buckets of water and bundles of firewood. But when they move to more urbanized areas, they ditch the practice.
And this practice was common also in Europe in pre-industrial times.
The earliest English example is in the Luttrell Psalter, an exceptionally revealing illuminated manuscript from the early fourteenth century, now owned by the British Library. Among its many scenes of agricultural life is one of sheep being milked in a pen, whilst two women walk away with pots on their heads, presumably carrying the milk back to the farm.
