Regional traditions

Cluster pages tying the woods and the stick-forms back to the cultures that produced them.

• England

  The English stick world: coppicing, hedge-laying, the British Stickmakers Guild, the Lake District hill-walking tradition, and single-stick — the largest working stick economy in the British Isles.

• France

  The French stick world — the canne de combat martial-arts tradition, the Continental cane register, the chestnut and beech working materials, and the substantial nineteenth-century Parisian gentleman's-cane culture.

• Germany

  The German stick world — the substantial European weapons-and-walking-stick craft tradition centred on cornel and beech, the Bavarian and Alpine working register, and the modern HEMA stick-and-staff revival.

• Ireland

  The Irish stick world: blackthorn, oak, the shillelagh, bataireacht, faction-fighting, and the small-batch revival. The journal's foundational subject and most-developed cluster of content.

• Japan

  Bo, jo, hanbo, shinai — and the bamboo-and-white-oak working tradition behind the most thoroughly-codified stave culture in the world.

• Northern Ireland

  The Northern Irish stick world — the substantial Antrim Bata martial tradition, the Donegal-adjacent coastal working register, the Belfast urban tradition, and the cross-border continuity with the broader Irish working community.

• Scotland

  The Scottish stick world — the Highland thumb-stick tradition, the holly-and-hazel working register, the Lowland shepherd's-crook practice, and the Highland Games ceremonial register that anchors the modern Scottish stick economy.

• Southern and Eastern Africa

  The knobkerrie, the Maasai orinka and rungu, and the Zulu iwisa — three of the world's most distinctive stick-and-club traditions, deserving careful treatment from outside the region.

• The American South & Appalachia

  Hickory, carved figural walking sticks, and the folk-craft tradition of the southern Appalachian states — the largest stick-making culture outside Europe and Asia.

• The Philippines

  Escrima, arnis, kali, and the rattan paired-stick tradition — one of the world's most distinctive stick-using cultures, and the Philippine national martial art since 2009.

• Wales

  The Welsh stick world — the canonical shepherd's-crook tradition, the hill-farming working register, the Royal Welsh Show competition culture, and the substantial regional craft community across north and south Wales.