Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/19

xvi and without similar interpretations. Occasionally the endless string may be arranged on the flat, or on the ear." Dr. Roth has given careful drawings of seventy-four North Queensland cat's-cradles and to most he has added a small figure to illustrate the original object which is copied, but unfortunately he does not give any indication of how they are made. My friend, Mr. W. Innes Pocock, has, however, been able to discover ways in which many of these figures can be constructed; these I hope will be published by the Anthropological Institute of London in Man. One (pl. V, Fig. 6), which is called a "Duck in Flight," is the same as the Torres Straits "Casting the Fish-spear" (p. 131.).

New Guinea. Turner (p. 483) was the first to record cat's-cradle from New Guinea, where he found it played by the Motu children of Port Moresby. Later, Finsch (1891, p. 33) found it as a child's game in Bentley Bay, and I have seen it played by children at Hula, Port Moresby, Delena, and on Kiwai Island. Thilenius (p. 20) hazards the suggestion that the figures made in this game may even have had an influence upon the decorative art and wood carving of the Papuans. I have more than once (1, p. 361; 2, p. 224; 3, pp. 38, 175, 201) alluded to its occurrence among the Papuans of Torres Straits. The general name for the game among the Western Islanders is Womer, and by the Eastern Islanders it is called Irarout. In 1888 I transferred on to cardboard a few figures that were made for me by a native of the Western Islands; three of these have been published by Edge-Partington & Heape (pl. 341, 1-3), they are Gud, mouth, Umai, dog, and Ger, sea-snake (cf. p. 34). Several examples from this region have been published by Dr. Rivers and myself, a few more will be found in this book, and some additional ones will be published in Vol. IV of our Reports. The thirty-four figures we wrote down fall into Mrs. Jayne's three groups (cf. p. 4). Of the patterns, 16 were figures at rest and 11 figures in motion; there were 6 tricks and 1 catch, and we know of the occurrence of many others; altogether the figures in motion appear to be as numerous as those at rest. More than one-third represent animals. Two of the fish, besides being well known as fish, are the subjects of a very popular folk-tale of the Murray Islands. One figure which represents boys playing is subsequently converted into two rings, which represent two of the sacred grounds of Mer (Murray Island), in which the very important initiation ceremonies into the Malu fraternity were held; and another is supposed to represent the passing of the stone-headed clubs from hand to hand during one of the Malu dances, as is described in Vol. VI of the Reports. With these exceptions there does not appear to be anything of a religious nature in the game as played in Torres Straits, and I think that these