Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/84

Rh "Many Stars" exhibits several movements which are unlike any we have hitherto studied. The Fifth, which appears to be a movement peculiar to these

Navaho figures, is a clever way of putting the middle finger loop around the thumb and index and turning it over in the transfer.

The result of the Sixth movement is interesting, because when the lower loop on each thumb and on each index is slipped over the upper loop and off the finger, it cannot run down the upper loop toward the centre of the figure in the form of a noose or ring, for the upper loop is a loop common to both thumb and index, hence the two loops are merely strung on the string of this thumb-index loop which passes from the back of the thumb to the back of the index. The Seventh movement is very characteristic of the Navaho figures; it may occur in the middle of the figure, or more than once in the same figure.

AN OWL This first "Owl" was obtained by Dr. Haddon from the two old Navaho men who showed him "Many Stars." (See Haddon 5, P. 222, pl. xv, Fig. 4.) It is called Nas-ja=an Owl. There is an example of the finished pattern in the Culin collection in the Philadelphia Free Museum of Science and Art (22716),

from St. Michael's Mission, Arizona.

First: First position.

Second: Put the right index from above down behind the string on the left palm (Fig. 107), draw it out and twist it by twice rotating the index toward you and then up. Separate the hands (Fig. 108).