Editing Backscratcher (section)

== History ==
Backscratchers are an example of [[Multiple discovery|simultaneous invention]](or multiple discovery), where separate cultures have invented the same device independent of each other. The [[Inuit]] carved backscratchers from whale teeth.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Scratching stick {{!}} National Museum of the American Indian |url=https://americanindian.si.edu/collections-search/object/NMAI_120583 |access-date=2025-05-13 |website=americanindian.si.edu}}</ref> In ancient China, Chinese farmers occasionally used backscratchers as a tool to check livestock for fleas and ticks.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Inside Peking University |last=Pattberg |first=Thorsten |date=May 2012 |publisher=LoD Press |isbn=978-0984209163 |page=11}}</ref> In recent history backscratchers were employed as a type of rake to keep the huge "heads" of powdered hair, worn by the upper-class in the 18th and 19th centuries, in order.<ref name="Chisholm">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Backscratcher|volume=3|page=135}}</ref>
[[File:Mid DSC 0027.jpg|thumb|A makara on the hilt of Mughul Dynasty backscratcher <ref name=":1" />]]
In the past, backscratchers were often highly decorated, and hung from the waist as accessories, with the more elaborate examples being silver-mounted, or in rare instances, capped by an ivory carved hand with rings on its fingers. The scratching hand was sometimes replaced by a rake or a [[bird]]'s [[Claw|talon]]. Generally, the hand could represent either a left or right hand, but the [[China|Chinese]] variety usually bore a right hand.<ref name="Chisholm" /> In the example above, from [[Bidar]], India in the 16th century, an ornate backscratcher has been made using a technique called [[Bidriware|bidri]]. Artisans used a zinc-copper alloy and inlaid it with silver. This example depicts a [[makara]] (a sea-monster in [[Hindus|Hindu]] myth) on its hilt.

Although not specifically used for only back scratching, young [[Chiricahua]] men in training and women going through a puberty ritual traditionally had to use a ceremonial wooden scratcher made from a fruit-bearing tree instead of scratching with their fingernails or hands. Young men who did not use the scratcher for scratching were reported to develop skin that was too soft.<ref>Opler, Morris E.; & Hoijer, Harry.  (1940). The raid and war-path language of the Chiricahua Apache.  ''American Anthropologist'', ''42'' (4), 617-634.</ref>