Editing Trampoline (section)

=== Early trampoline-like devices ===
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[[File:Inuitene morer seg med såkalt skinndans, 1922-1923 (12114498483).jpg|thumb|Inuit blanket toss in [[Wainwright, Alaska]] (1922–1923), during [[Maud (ship)|Amundsen's Maud Expedition]]]]
[[File:Nalukataq Blanket Toss Barrow.jpg|thumb|Iñupiat blanket toss during the [[Nalukataq]] festival in [[Utqiagvik, Alaska]] (2006)]]

A game similar to trampolining was developed by the [[Inuit]], who would toss blanket dancers into the air on a walrus skin one at a time (see [[Nalukataq]]) during a spring celebration of whale harvest. There is also some evidence of people in [[Europe]] having been tossed into the air by a number of people holding a blanket. Mak in the [[Wakefield Mystery Play]] ''[[The Second Shepherds' Play]]'', and [[Sancho Panza]] in ''[[Don Quixote]]'', are both subjected to blanketing – however, these are clearly non-voluntary, non-recreational instances of quasi-judicial, mob-administered punishment. The trampoline-like [[life net]]s once used by firefighters to catch people jumping out of burning buildings were invented in 1887.

The 19th-century poster for [[Pablo Fanque]]'s Circus Royal refers to performance on trampoline. The device is thought to have been more like a springboard than the fabric-and-coiled-springs apparatus presently in use.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.sideshowworld.com/a/at/atskite.html|title=Sideshow World, Sideshow Performers from around the world.|website=www.sideshowworld.com|access-date=May 3, 2018|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303193734/http://www.sideshowworld.com/a/at/atskite.html|archive-date=March 3, 2016}}</ref>

These may not be the true antecedents of the modern sport of trampolining, but indicate that the concept of bouncing off a fabric surface has been around for some time. In the early years of the 20th century, some acrobats used a "bouncing bed" on the stage to amuse audiences. The bouncing bed was a form of small trampoline covered by bedclothes, on which acrobats performed mostly [[comedy]] routines.

According to [[Circus (performing art)|circus]] folklore, the trampoline was supposedly first developed by an artiste named du Trampolin, who saw the possibility of using the trapeze safety net as a form of propulsion and landing device and experimented with different systems of suspension, eventually reducing the net to a practical size for separate performance. While trampoline-like devices were used for shows and in the circus, the story of du Trampolin is almost certainly apocryphal. No documentary evidence has been found to support it.

[[William Daly Paley]] of [[Thomas A. Edison, Inc.]] filmed blanket tossing initiation of a new recruit in Company F, 1st Ohio Volunteers in 1898.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.loc.gov/item/98501030/|title=Blanket-tossing a new recruit|website=Library of Congress}}</ref>