tumpline

Why this word is great

TUMPLINE — [Noun] A strap used to carry objects by placing its broadened or cushioned middle over the head just above the forehead, with the load tied to its ends. From tump (apheresis of mattump, metump, possibly from a Penobscot descendant of Proto-Algonquian *wetempi, "head") + line ("strap"). Unlike a "backpack" (which redistributes weight across the shoulders) or a "sling" (which loops casually over neck or arm), the tumpline is a direct, almost primal transfer of burden to the body's strongest axis. It is the deep groove worn into the forehead of a porter hauling firewood, the taut leather biting into the scalp of a voyageur balancing pelts, the silent strain of a mother carrying her child in a bundle—proof that the oldest solutions are often the simplest, and the simplest, the heaviest.