Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/197

162 In the same manner put a similar loop on the far string of the left near loop and thread the left far loop through it; and put a similar loop on the near string of the left far loop, and thread the near loop through it (Fig. 360). The central figure represents a piece of Caroline Islands Money—a large circular slab of stone—and the four little circles are the natives who are carrying the money on a pole passing through the middle of the slab.

This is the only example I am able to give of a final figure which is made by taking the loops from the fingers and then arranging the strings, as it were, artificially.

As this particular figure was shown to Dr. Furhess by a young boy, one might reasonably suspect that there is another way of doing it which he did not know; but I have seen an Eskimo make a figure in a similar manner and it is possible that the finished figures (which I give farther on) from the Nauru, or Pleasant, Island of

the Marshall Islands, were, to some extent, made artificially. Obviously, figures formed in this way are less interesting than those developed entirely on the hands.

The figure produced by the Second movement (Fig. 359) occurs among the finished patterns from Australia given by Roth (pl. x, Fig. 1) see page 383; and Edge-Partington figures (pl. 341, 1) a similar pattern from Torres Straits, preserved in the British Museum (A. C. Haddon Collection) entitled "cat's-cradle in the form of a mouth (good)." As this simple pattern can be produced by several entirely different methods, it probably will be found to be very widely distributed.

HOUSE OF THE BLOS-BIRD

Palangan im_mun-blos is the native name for this interesting game secured by Dr. Furhess from the Natik woman "Emily."

First and Second: The same as the First and Second movements of "Ten Men."

Third: Put each thumb from below into both index loops, and draw the thumb toward you in order to make the loop wider. Turn the middle, ring and little fingers of each hand away from you down over both strings of the little finger loop, and then, keeping the strings taut, turn the hands with the palms facing each other and then facing upward, to bring these three fingers toward you and up through the two loops passing around the thumb and index.