Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/401

 CHAPTER IX

ESKIMO AND INDIAN GAMES FROM ALASKA

URING his recent expedition through Alaska in the interest of the Philadelphia Free Museum of Science and Art, Dr. George B. Gordon kindly collected for me twenty-two interesting string games of the Eskimos and Tanana (Athapascan) Indians. Unfortunately, this book was in type and ready for the press when I learned these figures, therefore I can now give only the drawings of the finished patterns, and a few notes concerning the methods and their relations to the methods used in the figures already described. Of the eighteen Eskimo figures, eight begin with Opening A and ten with new openings; of the four Tanana figures, two begin with Opening A, one with a new opening, and one with the opening of the Eskimo "Mouth." One of the Eskimo figures—the "Wolverine" or the "Wolf"—is in all respects similar to the Klamath "Porcupine," and the "Dog on a Leash," although beginning with a new opening, is otherwise the same as the "Porcupine." The "Cariboo" is precisely the same as the "Cariboo" described by Boas from Baffin-Land. The finished pattern of the "Trap" is identical with the final pattern of the Eskimo "Mouth," but is formed by entirely different methods. One of the Tanana games, the "Bow-String," comes out like the Osage "Thumb Catch," but is otherwise very different. "Crow's Feet" is the familiar "Leas.king of Lochiel's Dogs"; the .methods, however, are novel and very simple: Lay the loop across your lap, with the two strings parallel and uncrossed; pass each little finger away from you under the near string (the hands being about a foot apart), then pass each index from the far side toward you under the far string; draw this string toward you and pick up the near string on the back of the index, from below and from the near side. Then, sweeping each hand outward, pick up from the near side and from below, on the ball of the index, that part of the far string which, lying on your lap, extends to the right and left of the hands; draw this string toward the centre and bring it up between the two strings passing from hand to hand, letting the loop already on the index slip off, and extend the figure on the index and little fingers. 358