of the stilts. Resting after this fashion, the stiltsman appears as if seated on a gigantic tripod. When he stops, he knits or spins on the distaff which he carries in his belt.
His usual costume is made up of a kind of sleeveless vest of sheepskin, linen gaiters, and a drugget cloak. On his head he wears a béret or a large hat. This outfit was formerly supplemented with a gun for defending the sheep against wolves, and a frying-pan in which to prepare dinner.[1]
The appearance of the Landais peasants is extremely picturesque, but their life is miserable; they are generally puny and thin, badly fed, and often threatened by fever. Mounted on their stilts, they lead their sheep across the Landes, going over the bushes and herbs, the little ponds, and safely crossing the marshes, without having to look for roads or beaten paths. This elevation, moreover, permits them easily to overlook their sheep, which are often dispersed over a considerable surface. To put on his stilts in the morning, the shepherd sits on the window-sill or climbs upon the chimney-piece; and even when he is in the open field he can attach them while sitting on the ground, and then rise with the assistance of his third stick.
Locomotion on stilts is evidently calculated to suggest peril to persons who are accustomed to walking only on the feet. We estimate the possible danger of a fall from the height of these implements from our experiences of ordinary pedestrians' falls; but the Landais, habituated from infancy to this sort of exercise, acquire extraordinary ease and skill in it. The tchangué is perfectly able to preserve his equilibrium; he marches with long strides, halts in a standing position, runs with agility, or executes an occasional acrobatic turn, picking up a stone from the ground, plucking a flower, pretending to fall and rise quickly, or running in a lock-step, etc.
The speed attained by stiltsmen is easily explained, when we regard the superior length of the stride which they can make without enlarging the angle of separation of the legs.
When the Empress Josephine went to meet Napoleon at Bayonne in 1808, the municipality sent a company of young Landais stiltsmen to escort her. Turning back, they very easily kept up with her carriages, although the horses trotted rapidly. During her sojourn at Bayonne, the shepherds on their stilts gave much amusement to the ladies of the court. They ran races, threw money on the ground and all tried to pick it up at once, and performed many exercises of cunning and skill, accompanied with frequent falls. Until very recently hardly any festivals took
- ↑ A representation from Nature, of a shepherd of the Landes on his stilts, can be seen in the hall of the Provinces of France, at the Ethnological Museum of the Trocadero.
