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Awalking stick (also known as awalking cane,cane,walking staff, orstaff) is a device used primarily to aidwalking, provide postural stability or support, or assist in maintaining agood posture. Some designs also serve as afashion accessory, or are used forself-defense.
Walking sticks come in many shapes and sizes and some have become collector's items. People with disabilities may use some kinds of walking sticks as acrutch, but a walking cane is not designed for full weight support but used to help with balance. The walking stick has also historically been known to be used as a self-defenseweapon, and mayconceal a sword or knife.
Hikers use walking sticks, also known astrekking poles,pilgrim's staffs, hiking poles, or hiking sticks, for a wide variety of purposes: as a support when going uphill or as 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 and water for depth; to enhance the cadence of striding, and as a defence against animals. Analpenstock, from its origins in mountaineering in theAlps, is equipped with a steel point and may carry a hook or ice axe on top. More ornate sticks may be adorned with small trinkets ormedallions depicting visited territory. Wooden 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 with wood carving or metal engraving plaques.
A collector of walking sticks is termed a rabologist.[1]
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Around the 17th or 18th century, a walking stick became an essential part of the European gentleman'swardrobe. The fashion may have originated withLouis XIV, who favored a walking stick, possibly because he wore high heels.[2] A curator of theDetroit Institute of Arts wrote about elaborate walking sticks in their collection:
There was almost no limit to the sums which people were then willing to spend upon them. Louis XIV had a stick whose eagle knob was set with twenty-four diamonds. TheRegent of France, one of the outstanding rakes of the century, had a huge and famous diamond called "the Regent" set as the head of a walking stick.Voltaire, who considered that he lived a life free from fashionable nonsense, owned eighty sticks.Rousseau, a poor man and the apostle of the simple life, owned forty.Count Brühl, creator of the famous Brühl Terrace at Dresden, owned three hundred canes, each with a snuff-box to match, one for each of his three hundred suits.[2]
The fashion spread across the Atlantic to America.Benjamin Franklin had received as a gift a gold-headed walking stick from a French lady admirer when he was ambassador to France. Franklin wrote a codicil to his Will in 1789 bequeathing it toGeorge Washington. It is now in the collection of theSmithsonian Institution.[3]
For use as a walking aid, it is usually recommended that the length of the stick should be such that the top of the handle reaches the wrist joint when standing up with arms hanging, wearing the footwear to be used with the stick.[4]
Sticks are rated according to the weight they can bear; this is not just a matter of the weight of the user, but depends upon whether the stick is used for light balance and support, or with a great deal of weight placed on the stick. Canes made of carbon fiber or aluminum are stronger than those of the same weight and made of other materials such as hardwood.[5]
Variousstaffs of office derived from walking sticks or staffs are used by both western and eastern Christian churches,[6][7] and for ceremonial purposes, as byBlack Rod, theTipstaff,Gold Stick and Silver Stick.
In North America, a walking cane is a walking stick curved down at the top, not usually actually made ofcane but of materials including wood, metal or carbon fiber.
In modern times, walking sticks are usually only seen with formal attire. Retractable canes that reveal such properties as hidden compartments,pool 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 byFred Astaire in several of his films and songs such asTop Hat, White Tie and Tails andPuttin' On the Ritz, where he exhorts, "Come, let's mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks or umbrellas in their mitts." He danced with a cane frequently.
Some canes, known as "tippling canes" or "tipplers", have hollowed-out compartments near the top whereflasks orvials of analcoholic beverage can be hidden and sprung out on demand.
When used as a mobility or stability aid, canes are generally used in the hand opposite the injury or weakness, allowing 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. Due to personal preference or a need to use the dominant hand some cane users hold the cane on their injured side.
In the U.S. Congress in 1856,Charles Sumner of Massachusetts criticizedStephen A. Douglas of Illinois andAndrew Butler of South Carolina for theKansas–Nebraska Act. When a relative of Andrew Butler,Preston Brooks, heard of it, he felt that Sumner's behavior demanded retaliation, and beat him senseless on the floor of the Senate with agutta-percha walking cane.[9] Although this event is commonly known as "the caning of Senator Charles Sumner", it was not acaning in the normal (especially British) sense of formalcorporal punishment with a much more flexible and usually thinner rattan.
A walking sticks expert (rabologist) is cataloguing great collection of walking sticks.
[A Bishop] may carry a walking stick ...
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