 Kites were used in Malayan religious observances
3,000 years ago. Legends about tethered flight can be
read in 2,500-year-old
Egyptian hieroglyphics. Assuming that kites had been known
for a long time before they became a part of legend, folklore,
or religion, it seems reasonable to believe that kites
date to the beginnings of human cultures. China may well
have been their birthplace.
The earliest kites were probably large leaves of semitropical plants flown from lines made of twisted vines. Certainly natural forms and materials would have been used before fabrications. Given a salubrious climate, luxurious vegetation, and steady breezes, it is easy to dream up a bemused Oriental observing the miracle of a big leaf supported in the air at the end of a long stem. This, obviously, was magic. Things did not naturally float in the air; they dropped to the ground.
We do not know how long it took our observant Oriental, or generations of his descendants, to determine that some leaves flew or floated better than others or to discover that the tether could be lengthened or varied in size to improve the flight. It was probably many centuries before man made his own "flying leaf" of skin drawn tight over a bamboo frame or of woven reeds. And when he finally achieved something that climbed into the heavens, it was inescapably religious. It linked man and the heavens. Malayam priests deemed it a sacred duty to protect their ceremonial kites from the prying eyes of curious foreigners.
Even today, in our matter-of-fact culture, there is something just a little beyond simple fun in the way a kite extends your hand's reach into the sky. |
