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Falconry has been around in China since about day one, I believe, and keeping homing pigeons is a national pastime that I think has deep roots too. If we can take Tang-era tomb art as a clue, then scenes of women playing polo suggest that sports weren't evenly divided along male and female lines at that time.
The Manchu practice of foot-binding may have kept women of the elite set off horseback, but women involved in falconry was much a standard pattern in Qing porcelain. Here's an 18th century Qianlong-period plate with matching cup and saucer in a popular pattern, showing a servant bringing a falcon to the apparent mistress of the house.
Best regards,
Bill H.
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