Battledore and shuttlecock, or jeu de volant, is an early sport related to modern
badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players p ...
. The game is played by two or more people using small
rackets
Racket may refer to:
* Racket (crime), a systematised element of organized crime
** Protection racket, a scheme whereby a group provides protection to businesses or other groups through violence outside the sanction of the law
* Racket (sports equ ...
(battledores), made of
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins ...
or rows of
gut stretched across wooden frames, and
shuttlecock
A shuttlecock (also called a birdie or shuttle) is a high-drag projectile used in the sport of badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger tea ...
s, made of a base of some light material, such as cork, with trimmed feathers fixed around the top. The object is for players to bat the shuttlecock from one to the other as many times as possible without allowing it to fall to the ground.
History
Games with a shuttlecock are attested to as early as 2,000 years ago, and have been popular in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...
, and
Siam
Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
.
Various traditional shuttlecock games have been played by
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and th ...
n
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
, including the
Kwakiutl,
Pima,
Salish, and
Zuni; they are often played with a feathered shuttle made of
corn husk or twigs and sometimes a wooden battledore.
[Tara Prindle]
"Cornhusk Shuttlecock Game"
NativeTech.org. In
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, battledore and shuttlecock was played by children for centuries, and ancient drawings appearing to depict the game have been found in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
.
[ Its most popular modern development is the game of ]badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players p ...
.
See also
*Hanetsuki
is a Japanese traditional game, similar to racket games like badminton but without a net, played with a rectangular wooden paddle called a '' hagoita'' and a brightly coloured shuttlecock, called a ''hane''. Often played by girls at the New ...
, a Japanese variant
References
Racket sports
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