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by Florence Wickramage

Kites are like beautiful dreams... floating away... up, up and up..as if to touch the billowy clouds against bright blue skies.

Children eagerly await the windy season,`to fly kites' and now that it is here, hundreds of colourful kites could be seen everywhere...in open spaces, by sea beaches, in way-side stalls or hanging by strings in children's hands. There is no age-limit to kite flying and it has become a seasonal sport with young and old alike.

The Kite-season is marked by festivities in different countries and in our own, Lake House has stepped in to usher in this year's Kite Festival on the Galle Face Green on 15th September at 2.p.m. ably supported by the Sri Lanka Tourism Board, the Moratuwa Lions Club, Sirasa FM and MTV Television channels.

History/Tradition

Colourful as the kite is its history. It gets its name after a graceful member of the Hawk family, the Kite. One tradition holds that kites were invented by the 5th century BC by a Greek scientist Archytas of Tarentum, but they have been in use in Eastern countries from time immemorial. This sport has long been a national pastime of the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and Malaysians.

Kite history in Japan dates back to the Heijan period (754-1185). Japanese called the kite "paper eagle" and is said to have been a mode of exchanging messages amongst the aristocracy.

In China on the ninth day of the ninth month is a festival called "Climbing the Heights" when grown-ups as well as children go out to fly kites. Some of the kites are made to look like men and women, others like birds, butterflies, dragons, fishes and serpents. Musical kites are used to frighten away evil spirits. They carry either reeds with holes in them so as to make a flute-like wailing note in the wind, or a string attached on a bow, so as to vibrate like that of a stringed instrument. Kites flying over a house at night were believed to keep evil spirits away.

Fighting between kites is an exciting sport in Japan and other parts of Eastern Asia. The object is to cut the flying cord of the opponent's kite. The upper part of the cord of each kite is painted with glue and dipped in powdered glass so as to form a sharp cutting edge. Each flyer tries to get his kite to drift down with the wind so that it touches that of the opponent's kite. As soon as this happens, he jerks his cord sharply so that it cuts that of the other kite which falls to the ground. The first person to reach it keeps it.

Koreans attach great importance to kite-flying. It makes them very happy to see a cord snap and the kite blown away. They believe that troubles and conflicts in life are thus removed from them. For this purpose Koreans write their problems on the face of the kite before flying it.

For Maori, a tribal community in New Zealand the kite is a symbol of peace. They consider it an ill omen if the cord breaks and the kite flies away and they walk miles and miles in search of the missing kite.

Other uses

Records reveal that besides sport, Kites had been used for other purposes. In 1749, Scottish Astrologer Alexander Wilson fixed a thermometer to a kite before flying it to test the temperature above the earth. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin in his famous experiment, hung a metal key from a kite line and, by attracting electricity from the air during a storm, demonstrated the electrical nature of lightening. Kites had been long used for weather observations; instruments were carried aloft to record otherwise unobtainable data until the advent of balloons and airplanes. Military experiments employing kites for observation were carried out before the start of the 20th century, but most military experiments ended with the advent of the airplane.

Kites had been used to mark boundaries for the construction of bridges over rivers. In 1849 a team of American engineers used kites to mark boundaries for the suspension bridge over the Niagara River, which connects the United States with Canada. In addition kites had been used to drop safety-ropes to ships stranded in mid-seas. In 1906, 14 kites were used to lift a camera over the San Francisco skies to record the earthquake and the devastation caused by it.

Kites had been used to create world records. In 1978, a Japanese, Kasuhito established a world record by flying 4128 kites on one single cord. Indian Dinesh Bahadur constructed the world's smallest kite (stamp size) and established another world record. He flew his kite to a height of 200 feet. Kites have been used to lift heavy objects to the air and such kites are also used in the sport called "Hang Gliding".

The largest kite recorded was the giant "Mega Bite" which was flown in Capetown, South Africa at the kite festival held on 05th October 1997. This kite measured 88 metres.

Types

Types of kites most commonly used are the three-sticker (hexagon), the malay (modified diamond), and the box kite. Those with only one flat surface must have tails hanging from the trailing edge to maintain balance. The box kite is an invention of Australian Lawrence Hargrave in the 1890s and is so named for its rectangular shape.

Kite-culture in Sri Lanka is colourful and varied, and undergo improvements and modifications as the years go by. The first record of a kite is found in R. L. Brohier's book on Colombo. It also mentions that Muslim traders used kites for betting purposes. The first Kite Festival recorded is the one organised by Moratuwa Jaycees in 1964 on the Moratuwa-Lunawa beach.

Kites sometimes are designed using traditional symbols to give an indigenous twist to the sport, and our young boys of school-going age are also quite expert in the art of kite-making. An inexpensive kite made at home or bought from a way-side stall can fly well and made to perform "stunts". Such stunts will be among highlights at the Kite Festival at Galle Face Green this year too, where fun and excitement galore will be on the cards for both participants and viewers - so keep the date free! 

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