Walking stick
Encyclopedia
A walking stick is a device used by many people to facilitate balancing
Balance (ability)
In biomechanics, balance is an ability to maintain the center of gravity of a body within the base of support with minimal postural sway. When exercising the ability to balance, one is said to be balancing....

 while walking
Walking
Walking is one of the main gaits of locomotion among legged animals, and is typically slower than running and other gaits. Walking is defined by an 'inverted pendulum' gait in which the body vaults over the stiff limb or limbs with each step...

.

Walking sticks come in many shapes and sizes, and can be sought by collectors. Some kinds of walking stick may be used by people with disabilities as a crutch. The walking stick has also historically been known to be used as a defensive
Self-defense
Self-defense, self-defence or private defense is a countermeasure that involves defending oneself, one's property or the well-being of another from physical harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in times of danger is available in many...

 or offensive
Assault
In law, assault is a crime causing a victim to fear violence. The term is often confused with battery, which involves physical contact. The specific meaning of assault varies between countries, but can refer to an act that causes another to apprehend immediate and personal violence, or in the more...

 weapon
Weapon
A weapon, arm, or armament is a tool or instrument used with the aim of causing damage or harm to living beings or artificial structures or systems...

, and may conceal a knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...

 or sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

 as in a swordstick
Swordstick
A swordstick or cane-sword is a cane incorporating a concealed blade. The term is typically used to describe European weapons from around the 18th century, but similar devices have been used throughout history, notably the Japanese shikomizue and the Ancient Roman dolon.- Popularity :The swordstick...

.

Walking sticks, also known as trekking poles, pilgrim's staff
Pilgrim's staff
The pilgrim's staff is a walking stick used by pilgrims on the Way of St. James to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. Generally, the stick has a hook on it so that something may be hung from it. The walking stick sometimes has a cross piece on it...

s, hiking poles or hiking sticks, are used by hikers for a wide variety of purposes: to clear spider web
Spider web
A spider web, spiderweb, spider's web or cobweb is a device built by a spider out of proteinaceous spider silk extruded from its spinnerets....

s, or part thick bush
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...

es or grass
Grass
Grasses, or more technically graminoids, are monocotyledonous, usually herbaceous plants with narrow leaves growing from the base. They include the "true grasses", of the Poaceae family, as well as the sedges and the rushes . The true grasses include cereals, bamboo and the grasses of lawns ...

 obscuring the trail; as a support when going uphill or a brake when going downhill; as a balance point when crossing streams, swamps or other rough terrain; to feel for obstacles in the path; to test mud
Mud
Mud is a mixture of water and some combination of soil, silt, and clay. Ancient mud deposits harden over geological time to form sedimentary rock such as shale or mudstone . When geological deposits of mud are formed in estuaries the resultant layers are termed bay muds...

 and puddle
Puddle
A puddle is a small accumulation of liquid, usually water, on a surface. It can form either by pooling in a depression on the surface, or by surface tension upon a flat surface...

s for depth; and as a defence against wild animals. A walking stick can be improvised from nearby felled wood. More ornate sticks are made for avid hikers, and are often adorned with small trinkets or medallions depicting "conquered" territory. Wood walking sticks are used for outdoor sports, healthy upper body exercise and even club, department and family memorials. They can be individually handcrafted from a number of woods, and may be personalised in many ways for the owner.

A collector of walking sticks is termed a Rabologist

Origin

Around the 17th or 18th century, a stout rigid stick took over from the sword
Sword
A sword is a bladed weapon used primarily for cutting or thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration...

 as an essential part of the European gentleman's wardrobe
Wardrobe
A Wardrobe is a cabinet used for storing clothes.Wardrobe may also refer to:* Wardrobe , a full set of multiple clothing items* Wardrobe , part of royal administration in medieval England...

, used primarily as a walking stick. In addition to its value as a decorative accessory, it also continued to fulfill some of the function of the sword as a weapon. The standard cane was rattan
Rattan
Rattan is the name for the roughly 600 species of palms in the tribe Calameae, native to tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Australasia.- Structure :...

 with a rounded metal grip. The clouded cane, as in the quotation below, was made of malacca (rattan stems) and showed the patina of age:



Some canes had specially weighted metalwork. Other types of wood, such as hickory
Hickory
Trees in the genus Carya are commonly known as hickory, derived from the Powhatan language of Virginia. The genus includes 17–19 species of deciduous trees with pinnately compound leaves and big nuts...

, are equally suitable.

Accessories

  • The most common accessory, before or after purchase or manufacture, is a hand strap, to prevent loss of the stick should the hand release its grip. These are often threaded through a hole drilled into the stick rather than tied around.
  • A clip-on frame or similar device can be used to stand a stick against the top of a table.
  • In cold climates, a metallic cleat
    Cleat (shoe)
    Cleats or studs are protrusions on the sole of a shoe, or on an external attachment to a shoe, that provide additional traction on a soft or slippery surface...

     may be added to the foot of the cane. This dramatically increases traction on ice. The device is usually designed so it can be easily flipped to the side to prevent damage to indoor flooring.
  • Different handles are available to match grips of varying sizes.
  • Rubber ferrule
    Ferrule
    A ferrule is a name for types of metal objects, generally used for fastening, joining, or reinforcement...

    s give extra traction on most surfaces.
  • Nordic walking
    Nordic walking
    Nordic walking, originally known as ski walking, is a physical activity and a sport consisting of walking with poles similar to ski poles.-Origin:...

     (ski walking) poles are extremely popular in Europe. Walking with two poles in the correct length radically reduces the stress to the knees, hips and back. These special poles come with straps resembling a fingerless glove
    Glove
    A glove is a garment covering the hand. Gloves have separate sheaths or openings for each finger and the thumb; if there is an opening but no covering sheath for each finger they are called "fingerless gloves". Fingerless gloves with one large opening rather than individual openings for each...

    , durable metal tips for off-road and removable rubber tips for pavement and other hard surfaces.

Ecclesiastical use


Various staffs of office
Staff of office
A staff of office is a staff, the carrying of which often denotes an official's position, a social rank or a degree of social prestige.Apart from the ecclesiastical and ceremonial usages mentioned below, there are less formal usages. A gold- or silver-topped cane can express social standing...

 derived from walking sticks or staffs are used by both western and eastern Christian churches.

Types of walking stick

Ashplant — an Irish walking stick made from the ash tree
Ash tree
Fraxinus is a genus flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45-65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous though a few subtropical species are evergreen. The tree's common English name, ash, goes back to the Old English æsc, while the generic name...



Devil's walking stick — Made from Hercules plant
Aralia spinosa
Aralia spinosa, commonly known as Devil's Walkingstick, is a woody species of plants in the genus Aralia, family Araliaceae, native to eastern North America. The various names refer to the viciously sharp, spiny stems, petioles, and even leaf midribs...

.

Shooting stick — It can fold out into a single-legged seat.

Supplejack — Made from a tropical American vine, also serves as a cane.

Penang lawyer — Made from Licuala. After the bark was removed with only a piece of glass, the stick was straightened by fire and polished. The fictional Dr. Mortimer owned one of these in The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third of four crime novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in The Strand Magazine from August 1901 to April 1902, it is set largely on Dartmoor in Devon in England's West Country and tells the story of an...

.

Makila
Makila
The makila is a traditional Basque walking stick, and is notable as both a practical tool and a cultural symbol of authority and strength.-Etymology:...

 (or makhila) — Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

 walking stick or Staff, usually made from medlar wood. It often features a gold or silver foot and handle, which may conceal a steel blade. The Makila's elaborate engravings are actually carved into the living wood, then allowed to heal before harvesting.

Kebbie — a rough Scottish walking stick, similar to an Irish Shillelagh
Shillelagh
The word shillelagh can mean:* Shillelagh , a type of hand weapon* Shillelagh, County Wicklow, a town in Ireland* The MGM-51 Shillelagh missile* Shillelagh, the code name for Source Mage GNU/Linux 0.5* It's the Same Old Shillelagh, an Irish song...

, with a hooked head

Whangee — Asian, made of bamboo, also a riding crop. Such a stick was owned by Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

's character The Tramp
The Tramp
The Tramp, also known as The Little Tramp was Charlie Chaplin's most memorable on-screen character, a recognized icon of world cinema most dominant during the silent film era....

.

Malacca — Malay stick made of rattan palms.

Pike Staff — Pointed at the end for slippery surfaces.

Waddy
Waddy
A Waddy, nulla nulla or hunting stick is an Australian Aboriginal war club. The former name comes from the Dharuk Aborigines of Port Jackson, Sydney....

 — Australian Aboriginal walking stick or war club, about one metre in length, sometimes with a stone head affixed with string and beeswax.

Ziegenhainer:— Knotty German stick, made from European Cornel
European Cornel
The European Cornel is a species of dogwood native to southern Europe and southwest Asia. In North America, the plant is known by the common name of Cornelian Cherry....

, also used as a melee weapon by a duellist's second. The spiral groove caused by a parasitic vine was often imitated by its maker if not present.

American "walking canes"

In North America, a walking cane is a walking stick with a curved top much like a shepherd's staff, but shorter. Thus, although they are called "canes," they are usually made of material heavier than cane
Cane
Cane are either of two genera of tall, perennial grasses with flexible, woody stalks from the family Poaceae that grow throughout the world in wet soils. They are related to and may include species of bamboo. The genus Arundo is native from the Mediterranean region to the Far East. Arundinaria...

, such as wood or metal.

In the United States, presidents have often carried canes and received them as gifts. The Smithsonian has a cane given to George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

 by Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...

. It features a gold handle in the shape of a Phrygian cap
Phrygian cap
The Phrygian cap is a soft conical cap with the top pulled forward, associated in antiquity with the inhabitants of Phrygia, a region of central Anatolia. In the western provinces of the Roman Empire it came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty, perhaps through a confusion with the pileus,...

. In modern times, walking sticks are usually only seen with formal attire. Collectors of canes look for the old, the new, the unique and the novel. Retractable canes that reveal such properties as hidden compartments, pool
Billiards
Cue sports , also known as billiard sports, are a wide variety of games of skill generally played with a cue stick which is used to strike billiard balls, moving them around a cloth-covered billiards table bounded by rubber .Historically, the umbrella term was billiards...

 sticks, or blades are popular among collectors. Handles have been made from many substances, both natural and manmade. Carved and decorated canes have turned the functional into the fantastic.

The idea of a fancy cane as a fashion accessory to go with top hat and tails has been popularized in many song-and-dance acts, especially by Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...

 in several of his films and in the song Top Hat, White Tie and Tails
Top Hat, White Tie and Tails
"Top Hat, White Tie and Tails" is a popular song written by Irving Berlin for the 1935 film Top Hat, where it was introduced by Fred Astaire.The song title refers to the formal wear required on a party invitation, top hat, white tie, and a tailcoat....

.

Some canes, known as "Tippling Canes" or "Tipplers," have hollowed-out compartments near the top where flask
Hip flask
A hip flask is a thin flask for holding a distilled beverage; its size and shape are suited to a trouser pocket.-Description: Hip flasks were traditionally made of pewter, silver, or even glass, though most modern flasks are made from stainless steel...

s or vial
Vial
A vial is a relatively small glass vessel or bottle, especially used to store medication as liquids, powders or in other forms like capsules. They can also be sample vessels; e.g., for use in autosampler devices in analytical chromatography.The glass can be colourless or coloured, clear or amber...

s of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....

 could be hidden and sprung out on demand.

When used as a mobility or stability aide, canes are generally used in the hand opposite the injury or weakness. This may appear counter-intuitive, but this allows the cane to be used for stability in a way that lets the user shift much of their weight onto the cane and away from their weaker side as they walk. Personal preference, or a need to hold the cane in their dominant hand, means some cane users choose to hold the cane on their injured side.

In a violent episode in the U.S. Congress in 1856, Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. An academic lawyer and a powerful orator, Sumner was the leader of the antislavery forces in Massachusetts and a leader of the Radical Republicans in the United States Senate during the American Civil War and Reconstruction,...

 of Massachusetts called Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen A. Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...

 of Illinois a "noisome squat and nameless animal" and brutally insulted Andrew Butler
Andrew Butler
Andrew Pickens Butler was an United States Senator and one of the authors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.-Biography:...

 of South Carolina for a congenital deformity. When a relative of Andrew Butler, Preston Brooks
Preston Brooks
Preston Smith Brooks was a Democratic Congressman from South Carolina. Brooks is primarily remembered for his severe beating of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate with a gutta-percha cane, delivered in response to an anti-slavery speech in which Sumner compared Brooks'...

, heard of it, he felt that Sumner's behavior demanded retaliation, but did not quite merit a duel. He therefore beat him senseless on the floor of the Senate with a wooden walking cane. Although this event is commonly known as "the caning of Senator Charles Sumner", it was not a caning
Caning
Caning is a form of corporal punishment consisting of a number of hits with a single cane usually made of rattan, generally applied to the offender's bare or clothed buttocks or hand . Application of a cane to the knuckles or the shoulders has been much less common...

in the normal (esp. British) sense of formal corporal punishment with a much more flexible and usually thinner rattan.

External links

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