Recently, have you all been swept up by the Beijing Winter Olympics? The outstanding performance of Chinese Olympic athletes has not been spent in front of the TV every day to watch the game like being demoted. Skiing is undoubtedly one of the most dazzling sports in this Olympic Games, athletes dancing lightly on the snow, snowboards flying up and down in the field, Gu Ailing and Su Yiming and other new generation of young players' outstanding performance is even more surprising, clapping hands.
However, while watching the game with enthusiasm, we must not forget to learn about a more proud and proud thing - skiing and snowboarding actually originated in China!
Gu Ailing in the 2022 Winter Olympics freestyle ski women's big jump final (Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Huang Zongzhi)
Skiing did not first appear in the form of sports, but a production lifestyle that the ancients had to breed in order to survive in a harsh natural environment. They hunt, walk, migrate in the snow, use snowboards to make the most of the natural environment, and use their wealth and wisdom to maximize the use of the natural environment and live in harmony with it.
In the boulder cave of the Dundebulak River Valley in Altay City, Xinjiang, a petroglyph recording the earliest skiing scene of human beings was found, painted in the late Paleolithic Period, with a history of 10,000-20,000 years, confirming that Altay in Xinjiang, China is the origin of skiing in the world.
Painted petroglyphs of Dundebulak Cave in Altay Khan Degat Township, Xinjiang
The oldest snowboard was also born here, the earliest written record of ancient skis in the literature is found in the eighteenth volume of the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" "Hai Nei Jing" "The country with the nail spirit has a hairy horse to walk from under the knee", the so-called nail spirit country refers to the ancient Chinese Zero Ding ethnic group, which was the northern ethnic minority in the mainland south of Lake Baikal until the Alta mountain area at that time, they were the earliest ethnic groups engaged in skiing in China. What is recorded in the text is a fur ski with the skin under the horse's knee at the bottom of the snowboard.
Later, in the "Literature Examination", there are also records: "Tian Duoxue, Heng takes wood as a horse, chases deer on the snow, its shape is like a shield and its head is high, and its underneath is a horse skin smooth sweater, so that the hair is slippery with snow, like a walking clog, running down the ban to walk through the running deer, if the snow is flat, that is, walking with wooden thorns, such as a boat, the upper saka is holding and climbing", which is a vivid description of the wonderful scene when the ancient nomadic people in the Altay region of Xinjiang were snowboarding and hunting.
Horsehair skis (Photo: Zhao Laiqing)
In the relatively closed ancient Altay region, the ancestors used local materials and constantly summarized and accumulated experience in making skis.
In the beginning, people made some wooden planks called Tsana, and people stepped on the planks and slid on the ground with a stick in their hands. Later, movable metal "thorns" were installed on the skis, and the "thorns" were controlled as "smooth stubble" when sliding, and the "thorns" became "stubble" when going uphill to increase the resistance, but the operation was more troublesome. Later, it was found that the hairs on the horse's legs were long downwards, which would cause resistance when the legs stepped into the deep snow, but when pulled out, they were quite smooth. So the skin of the horse's leg is wrapped on the ski, so that the slide is smooth and therefore faster, and the straight and hard hair on the horse skin becomes a reverse stubble when going uphill, which can prevent the snowboard from slipping. This effect of both sliding and going up made horse skin skis very popular. Later, it was also equipped with ski poles to control direction and balance, and even used as a weapon when hunting.
Amazingly, this kind of snowboard with horsehair at the bottom has been popular for tens of thousands of years, and it is still used in the Altay region. Many herdsmen families in the Altay Mountains now have a pair of snow boards placed at home. It is an honor for us to witness this ancient skiing method and craftsmanship that has changed over the millennia, and we hope that while cheering for the Olympic athletes, we must not forget to better protect and pass on this precious cultural heritage in the hands of our generation.
A skater gliding on a horse-hair snowboard (Photo: Zhao Laiqing)