Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/85

 Rh punishment and of a brand whereby the community may be aware of his evil propensity. The burro in the picture must be an incorrigible, for his ears are entirely gone.

The photograph from which the plate is reproduced was exhibited by me at the meeting of the Society on November 15th, 1905. It was made in 1901 by my friend and neighbour, Mr. C. C. Pierce, of Los Angeles, California, at the village of Oraibi, which is one of the pueblos inhabited by the Moqui.

No apology seems to be needed for an attempt to describe at some length the English game of Cat's Cradle, though the manner of its execution may leave much to desire. Within the past few years the researches of anthropologists have given the subject of string tricks and string figures a status they never before possessed; while on the other hand those that are still unrecorded lead a precarious existence in the memories of people who are either unaware of their interest or without the leisure and inclination to perpetuate them. In the following notes I have given all that I have been able to collect from my own experience or that of others known to me. More might have been added, because the game has possibilities not generally known; but it seemed better to confine my notes to figures and movements which I have actually seen or know to have been played: and I have departed from this rule in one or two instances only.

When I began to investigate and analyse the game I soon found that the complexity of the strings was much more apparent than real, and that blind faith in the efficacy of certain movements might be usefully supplemented by a general knowledge of the construction of the several figures and of the