Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/265

228 the palms turned away from you, and extend the figure between the thumbs and middle fingers (Fig. 515).

This figure has several novel movements; the Third and Fourth are rather hard to learn, but should present no difficulties in execution. With practice the figure can be formed rapidly and with certainty. The pattern produced by the opening

movement is very like the pattern produced by the opening movement of the "Bow" but the lower straight string passes on the near side of the near thumb strings, and not on the far side of them.

TWIN STARS

I collected this figure in the same way as the preceding figure. There are two examples of this pattern in the Philadelphia Free Museum of Science and Art, collected by Mr. Stewart Culin; No. 227:15 is a Navaho figure, from St. Michael's Mission, Arizona, called Sono-tsihu = Twin Stars; No. 22606 is from Zuñi, N.M., called Pi-cho-wai, wai-lo-lo = Lightning; it has been artificially distorted.

First: The same as the First movement of "The Bow."

Second: Transfer the index loops to the thumbs, by putting each thumb from below into the index loop returning the thumb to its position, and withdrawing the index (Fig 516). Keep the two loops on the thumb well separated; the loop taken from the index up at the tip.

Third: Bend each index toward you and down through the upper thumb loop, and then down to the far side of the lower far thumb string; take up on the back of the finger this lower far string (Fig. 517, Left hand), and lift it up on the tip of the finger as you straighten the latter to its position (Fig. 517, Right hand).