TOSSING THE CABER
I grumbled yesterday when I had to move some logs, cut from a dead tree, from one place to another. Each piece was about 16 inches long and 6 inches in diameter. I carried two under one arm and one under the other, making five trips. I felt rather proud of this work after it was accomplished.
It put me in mind of another log-related physical activity which I have long admired - tossing the caber. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caber_toss
It's a Scottish sport in which a person holds upright a sort of telephone pole about 20 feet long, weighing 175 pounds, runs forward and tries to flip it so that it lands on the other end and then falls away from him or her, ideally at the 12 o'clock position.
See, for example, the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmhwRgI64-Q
For women tossing a shorter and lighter caber, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrNu2QTnfxM
This made me think of distinguishing between those sports which have a relatively direct connection to their natural environment and those which have more complexity and artificiality. In the first category we can put such things as footraces, long jumping, high jumping, javelin/discus/hammer throwing. In the second category would be golf, tennis, soccer, football, polo, baseball, skiing etc.
A further question arose. Is there any reason to think that one of these categories should be preferred in a society, and, if so, why?
The answer may have something to do with the extent to which a sport expresses natural energies or fosters "virtues" which the society rates as desirable, such as cooperation, competition or sacrifice. For example, in America I see more and more transformations of quotidien activity into competitive events on television from cake baking to employment all the way to survival. One wonders whether the encouragement of competition can go too far.
It is also interesting to think about how sports evolve from simple forms to mass events in which the government and military forces become involved. I think of the Air Force jets flying over the stadiums at football Super Bowls. I wonder if there is a tendency in complex societies ( or perhaps all societies) to ritualize sporting events until they have profound religious and political meaning. The ball games played by the Mayans come to mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Ballgame
Thus do my menial chores begin to contribute to my thoughts about world civilization.
END
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