old chinese picture (1888)

david cain send me this pic from 1888 yesterday... it´s beautiful, thx david

Origins of Devilstick

The origins of Devilsticks

Hey everyone, so the discussion about the origins of our beloved prop pooped up once again on facebook which motivated me to write down my thoughts on this topic

As far as i know this is the first bulletproof proof for the existence of Devilstick and it´s from 1820.

The Samme Brothers claimed to be Indians but at that time performers usually claimed to be from some exotic countrys and learned their skills from there because exotic acts could be sold very well

It´s safe to assume that devilsticks has been around for a long time before. If it has been invented and cultivated in Asia we can assume that it travelled from there to europe around 1700 when travel and trading between Europe and Asia became more common.

Two other options are that they´ve been invented by the Maya or in ancient Greek.

The Greek theorie would fit with the rumours about the name coming from greek Dia-bolos, and Mayas been pretty bad ass  so why not.

While we can´t track down the origins i believe that there are questions people forget to ask.

How and in which context could Devilstick have been invented ?

If we look at early humans history i´d say the first two tools we found were stones and sticks.

Well basicly thats all they got in the stone age, and what better way to research and learn to manipulate tools then playing with them. Even if we look at modern kids with access to television and all, i bet it´s pretty save to say that every child has at one point in his life played with a stick.

And damn… there are many ways to play with a stick… fighting (hitting two sticks together), balancing, hitting a ball with a stick (baseball, tennis, snooker), passing a stick between one and another with hands and feet (or two small other sticks held in the hands), twirling motions, juggling 3 sticks clubstyle…

i believe all of this techniques are pretty instinctiv and if we combine them with the pendulum motion that can be observed a lot in our nature… we get the basic tictoc/idle

Another things that makes me believe in early flowersticks is that a flowerstick could be build pretty easy and there could been a strong motivation to do it.

1. sticks hurt, a stick wrapped in leather or fur doesnt
2. sticks are hard to manipulate, flowersticks arent
3. sticks look lame, a decorated stick doesnt

If we look at the origins in this way i believe that people just had to find the prop and techniques to play with it and the same way two jugglers can invented the same trick without knowing each other; it´s possible that ancient stick play has more than one origin (has been invented at several places and several times) or that the combination of different styles of stick play led to this toy.

The next question i rarely heard asked is… why china ?

because it´s said everywhere but so far i have found zero proof

here are some reasons why i believe it was not invented in china

• The first juggling pics were found in Egypt.
• There´s not even a proof i am aware of that the Diabolo was invented there, only the oldest proof is from China which doesnt mean it could´ve been invented somewhere else and then was cultivated there
• Im not aware of Devilsticks as part of traditional chinese circus (which is super traditional with acts being past over and over for centuries.
• There are very few DS Players in China.
• I was there for an two week exchange as a teenager… nobody i meet had seen DS  before.

so my last question for now.

if it was invented so early, why is there this huge gap where we know nothing about ? why is it so hard to find evidence.

My theory is that it has been a “childrens game” most of the time and well, there´s no need to write a book about some kids playing with sticks in the dirt and it´s not the nicest thing to paint either. Also i believe there was a time when other tois  (better produced, easyer to play, more fun, better to play in large groups etc) just displaced flowerstick until it was found by performers/circus people and was reinvented with large knowledge about object manipulation and a motivation to do crazy stick tricks that was not only playing games but amazing people and making money out of it

i guess that was about most of my thinking on this...

feel free to discuss, comment, come up with even crazyer ideas...