European Championship and Polish Championship in Traditional Archery
Ethiopia, a country with a history and culture dating back thousands of years, has yet to have its past fully documented and understood.
At the moment, there now exist over 293 registered traditional and cultural sports and games in Ethiopia.
The earliest evidence of one of these games was found in Yeha (modern day Ethiopia) and Matara (modern day Eritrea).
It is dated to between the 6th and 7th century AD during the time of the powerful Aksumite Kingdom and was found in the form of pieces of a pottery board with several rock cuts.
In the 14th century, Giyorgis of Segla who wrote the "Mysteries of Heaven and Earth" in Ge'ez, mentions the word "qarqis", which is a Ge'ez word referring to both the Gebeta and Senteraj board games.
It is widely believed that Gebeta, commonly referred to as Mancala is one of the oldest board games in history.
More recently, Ethiopian Emperors Tewodros, Yohannes IV and Menelik II were documented to have organized and led traditional and cultural sporting events, lavishly awarding the winners.
We recommend a very interesting article on Ethiopian sports and traditional games: https://allaboutethio.com/10-best-ethiopian-traditional-sports-games.html
In May, it was the XC anniversary of the foundation of the International Basque Federation Pelota. Congratulations!
A Persian miniature from the poem Guy-o Chawgân ("the Ball and the Polo-mallet") during Safavid dynasty of Persia, which shows courtiers on horseback playing a game of polo, 1546 AD.
The illustration (1529) is in Christoph Weiditz's Trachtenbuch, an ethnographic record on the Aztec Indians in the 16th century. Presents playing the Mesoamerican Ball Game.
Artist: Knud Bergslien (1827-1908)
Title: Skiing Birchlegs Crossing the Mountain with the Royal Child.
Depiction of Birkebeiner skiers carrying Prince Haakon to safety during the winter of 1206 has become a national Norwegian icon. The prince grew up to be King Haakon IV whose reign marked the end of the period known as the Civil war era in Norway.
Source: Birkebeinerne på Ski over Fjeldet med Kongsbarnet. The Ski Museum. Holmenkollen, Oslo, Norway.
Kazimierz Waluch, the President of the Institute for Sport Development and Education, will participate, as a guest of the World Ethnosport Confederation (WEC), at the 2nd International Ethnosport Forum, "Reviving Traditional Sports", which will take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on April 20-21, 2019.
This version of the racquet sport, played either on small courts or simply on the street, originated in Barbados in the 1930s. Most play the game on the road, but officially a court should be 20-feet long and 10-feet across, with an eight-inch ‘net’ on the tarmac. When the game first started, a standard tennis ball was used, but over time the ball was ‘skinned’ with the felt taken off to leave just the inside. Similarly, rackets are wooden – resembling large table tennis paddles without the rubber – rather than the strung composite rackets.
