String figure

Photograph of a boy having made "Lightning", from Jayne's String Figures and How to Make Them.
"Osage Two Diamonds".
Illustrations from Jayne's String Figures and How to Make Them.

A string figure is a design formed by manipulating string on, around, and using one's fingers or sometimes between the fingers of multiple people. String figures may also involve the use of the mouth, wrist, and feet. They may consist of singular images or be created and altered as a game, known as a string game, or as part of a story involving various figures made in sequence (string story). String figures have also been used for divination, such as to predict the sex of an unborn child.[1]

A popular string game is cat's cradle, but many string figures are known in many places under different names,[2] and string figures are well distributed throughout the world.[3][4]

  1. ^ Foster Jr., George M. (1941). "String-Figure Divination". American Anthropologist. New Series. 43 (1): 126–127. doi:10.1525/aa.1941.43.1.02a00300.
  2. ^ Jayne (1962), p.340. Also Elffers & Schuyt (1979), p.44-5.
  3. ^ Lois & Earl W. Stokes. "The Ancient Art of Hawaiian String Figures". Web of Life International, a project of Aloha International.
  4. ^ Elffers, Joost and Schuyt, Michael (1978/1979). Cat's Cradles and Other String Figures, p.197. ISBN 0-14-005201-1.