Tub Tilting

 

 

 

Search  Inquiry Net

Back ] Home ] Up ] Next ]

Battle Royal
Buzz
Cats on Fence
Cock Fighting
Crab-Walk
Hat-Trimming
Indian Leg
Navajo Feather
One-Legged
Pantomimes
Solemnity
Song-Fest
Spider Race
Strong Hand
Stung
Swat Blindman
Talk-Fest
Tub Tilting
Whistling Match
Whittling Match
Witch's Broom

Scout Books

Site Contents

by Ernest Thompson Seton

bbr029.gif (1799 bytes)

Tub tilting is immensely popular at night by the blazing campfire, as well as in the city at the indoor councils. It is an exciting game, tests the ability of the contestants, and can be made quite scientific. 

For this, we use two small tubs, about flour-barrel size, or, better still, two stools made with a heavy plank top, circular, 14 inches in diameter, and supported by four strong legs spreading widely at the bottom. The top of the stool should be about two feet off the ground. 

The stools are set level, exactly a spear length apart, center to center. Each fighter takes his place on a stool, and his game is to put the other off the stool with a thrust of his spear. To prevent accidents, we have usually a catcher behind each man. The umpire stands alongside, near the middle. 

It is a foul to use the spear as a club, or to push below the knees, to push the stool, to seize the other man's spear in your hands, or to to touch the ground with the spear. A foul gives the round to the other man. 

The round is over when one man is off or when he fouls. 

It is a draw when both go off together. 

They change stools and spears after each round. 

The battle is usually for three or five rounds. 

Several good parries are well known. One is to use your spear handle as in bayonet parries. The best players parry much by wriggling the body. Often, when over-balanced, one can regain by spinning completely around. 

The correct spears are made thus: Take six feet of the butt-end of a bamboo an inch thick. Make a ball of hardwood, about two inches in diameter, with a central projecting peg about 3 inches long and 3/4 inch thick. Stick this into the top of the bamboo. Make it secure with a lashing and one or two very thin nails driven in. 

Pad the head an inch thick with the ordinary horsehair stuffing that is used in furniture, and bind all with strong burlap, sewing it at the seams and lashing it around the bamboo with string. This completes the dry land spear. If for use in the water, make a final cover out of rubber cloth. This keeps the spear dry. A completed spear weighs about 1 1/2 pounds. 

I have seen a good many campers try tilting on the land or on the water and make an utter failure of it, by reason of the absurdly clumsy, heavy spears used. A green sapling was cut for handle, and the end tied up in a bundle of rags that was 18 inches through. This was hard enough to lift, when dry, and as it usually soon fell into the water and got sopping wet, its weight became trebled, and one could not use it as a spear at all.

The Birch Bark Roll

 

 

   

 

 


Additional Information:

Peer- Level Topic Links:
Battle Royal ] Buzz ] Cats on Fence ] Cock Fighting ] Crab-Walk ] Hat-Trimming ] Indian Leg ] Navajo Feather ] One-Legged ] Pantomimes ] Solemnity ] Song-Fest ] Spider Race ] Strong Hand ] Stung ] Swat Blindman ] Talk-Fest ] [ Tub Tilting ] Whistling Match ] Whittling Match ] Witch's Broom ]

Parent- Level Topic Links:
Council Games ] Indoor Games ] Outdoor Games ] Water Games ]

The Inquiry Net Main Topic Links:
 [Outdoor Skills]  [Patrol Method [Old-School]  [Adults [Advancement]  [Ideals]  [Leadership]  [Uniforms]

Search This Site:

Search Amazon.Com:

When you place an order with Amazon.Com using the search box below, a small referral fee is returned to The Inquiry Net to help defer the expense of keeping us online.  Thank you for your consideration!

Search:

Keywords:

Amazon Logo

 

 

Scout Books Trading Post

Dead Bugs, Blow Guns, Sharp Knives, & Snakes:
What More Could A Boy Want?

Old School Scouting:
What to Do, and How to Do It!

To Email me, replace "(at)" below with "@"
Rick(at)Kudu.Net

If you have questions about one of my 2,000 pages here, you must send me the "URL" of the page!
This "URL" is sometimes called the "Address" and it is usually found in a little box near the top of your screen.  Most URLs start with the letters "http://"

The Kudu Net is a backup "mirror" of The Inquiry Net.  

©2003, 2011 The Inquiry Net, http://inquiry.net  In addition to any Copyright still held by the original authors, the Scans, Optical Character Recognition, extensive Editing,  and HTML Coding on this Website are the property of the Webmaster.   My work may be used by individuals for non-commercial, non-web-based activities, such as Scouting, research, teaching, and personal use so long as this copyright statement and a URL to my material is included in the text
The purpose of this Website is to provide access  to hard to find, out-of-print documents.  Much of the content has been edited to be of practical use in today's world and is not intended as historical preservation.   I will be happy to provide scans of specific short passages in the original documents for people involved in academic research.  

 

Last modified: October 15, 2016.