Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/30

Rh by the Rev. John Gray on several Scotch cat's-cradles, include, probably, all the descriptive records on the subject.

My brother, Dr. William Henry Furness, 3rd, in his recent trip among the Caroline Islands, by following Drs. Rivers and Haddon's directions and nomenclature, was able to record fifteen new and extremely interesting string figures; and at Dr. Haddon's suggestion I visited the St. Louis Exposition several times in 1904, and was fortunate enough to secure thirty-one additional games from natives of the various races and tribes there congregated. Of the ninety-seven figures set forth on the following pages seventy-one are now described for the first time. To this list have been added drawings of a number of finished patterns obtained by other observers who did not record, however, the methods by which they were made. Just what value the study of the string games of different races will have to the ethnologist, it is difficult to say at this time. That evidences of racial or tribal relationship, or of migration, may be found in them, is not unlikely; that they bring us in closer touch with the folk-lore of savage people is already clear. While games in general of native races, and their connection with folk-lore, have by no means been neglected, string figures have appeared so difficult and require relatively so much time and such intimate relations for their collection, that, as yet, few careful observations have been made. Gradually, however, we are learning more about them; we know that many are closely connected with racial history and mythology, with traditional tales and fortune-telling; some are accompanied by muttered chants or songs; in others a consecutive story follows from movement to movement, or perhaps a touch or a word is associated with a certain turn or twist of the string. Concerning the relations, which the finished patterns produced in the string games of different countries, bear to one another, we know that a few simple figures are practically universal, that several others are formed by widely separated races, but that the great majority are peculiar to definite localities. We cannot suppose that the natives set to work deliberately to form figures of familiar objects, but rather that of the many patterns—formed by chance, in sheer idleness or from an inventive turn, whether under tropical suns or in ice huts during long arctic winters—only those were kept up and named which bore resemblances, however slight, to something connected with their daily life or prominent in their thoughts How far tradition has preserved the figures unchanged, or time and constant repetition have altered their original form, of course it is impossible to tell. In the finished patterns we 'find, among all races, representations of men and women, parts of the body, articles of dress, of commerce, and of warfare; and of stars, and natural phenomena--such as storms, darkness, and lightning. Animals and plants are frequently reproduced, the names of course being conditioned by the fauna and flora of the locality, as, for example, the coral of the Pacific Islands, the cariboo of the Eskimos, and the owl, snake, and coyote of the American Indians.

The methods employed by different races in making the figures and a