Do people in Brazil traditionally carry heavy loads on their heads?

January 18, 2011 8:06 PM

I associate persons carrying heavy burdens on their heads with Africa. Is there a tradition of doing this in Brazil? Any non-African countries?
posted by jsturgill to Society & Culture (17 answers total)

Asians do it - Old Korea, India.

I think every culture used to/still has a form of it. The ergonomics just make it easier to haul heavy loads over long distances.
posted by blahblah at 8:17 PM on January 18, 2011 [1 favorite]

Video from Bangladesh. Photograph from India (where lines of women carrying baskets of dirt on their heads are a stock image of construction sites). Another from Jamaica. And, to give a partial answer your Brazil question, a photo from there. (More complicated answer: it depends on where in Brazil you are talking about; it's a big country and carrying loads on the head is not done everywhere.)
posted by Forktine at 8:19 PM on January 18, 2011

I've seen this a lot in Papua New Guinea.
posted by Wantok at 8:53 PM on January 18, 2011

I was in Guatemala two weeks ago, and the women do it there, too. Big woven baskets of bananas, woven cloth, laundry.
posted by lunalaguna at 8:58 PM on January 18, 2011

The Hopi did/do this. Probably other Indians too, but I know the Hopi do.
posted by cmoj at 9:10 PM on January 18, 2011

From Spain.
posted by sweetkid at 9:12 PM on January 18, 2011

And Haiti! (wow! how is he doing that!)
posted by sweetkid at 9:13 PM on January 18, 2011

In Guyana the tribeswomen carry big baskets of cassava on their heads.
posted by The otter lady at 9:25 PM on January 18, 2011

I think the short answer is it seems every developing culture has a version of it, especially among the women. It allows for carrying quite heavy loads and having free hands for children, etc.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 9:28 PM on January 18, 2011

At a highway construction site in Indonesia around 1985 I saw a whole line of women carrying baskets of rock and gravel on their heads, like a human conveyor belt. (The men didn't have it any cushier - they were swinging pickaxes and shovels.)
posted by Quietgal at 9:30 PM on January 18, 2011

I've seen women in central Australia do this.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 11:15 PM on January 18, 2011

You still see this today in the rural areas of Italy.
posted by aqsakal at 1:08 AM on January 19, 2011

Older women in the countryside still carry things on their heads in Portugal
posted by foleypt at 2:54 AM on January 19, 2011

You see this in Pakistan a fair bit.
posted by bardophile at 5:10 AM on January 19, 2011

My part of Brazil is strongly Afro-Brazilian. I do see people with stuff on their heads from time to time but it's pretty rare in my upper middle-class part of town.
posted by wallaby at 6:34 AM on January 19, 2011

I've seen it here in Canada in a town with a large Portuguese population.
posted by antiquated at 7:15 AM on January 19, 2011

My mom would berate me with stories of her carrying water jugs and laundry on her head back in the old days in Mexico. Since females generally lack significant upper-body strength, this method has become typical way for women to deal with heavy burdens.
posted by lychee at 1:09 PM on January 19, 2011