Sticks
'Beating the bounds' brought to mind another ritualistic/folkloric act used for defining specific aspects of landscape:
'Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil,gravesites,[1] and many other objects and materials, as well as so-called currents of earth radiation (Ley lines), without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsing is also known as divining (especially in reference to interpretation of results),[2]doodlebugging (in the US)[citation needed], or (when searching specifically for water) water finding, water witching or water dowsing.[3]'
Another commonality between these two practices is that both 'Dowsing' and 'Beating the bounds' feature the use of handheld sticks or poles. I'm toying with the idea of designing some sort of multifunctional bespoke tool that could be used to help provide information about the wasteland.
The ever changing use of poles and sticks.