and at the same time aid materially in cultivating manual dexterity and a nice coordination of brain and hand.

Moreover, two persons can play string games together, the right hand of one and the left hand of the other forming one figure while the other hands are forming an entirely different figure; in the same way many persons can play together.

It should be remembered that the following descriptions follow exactly the methods used by the natives; doubtless other ways of forming the same figures exist, or can be devised, but I have not deemed it right, on the ethnological grounds given above, to change the methods shown to me at first hand or recorded by others.

The invention of new figures is a fascinating diversion, and is of value because thereby a student becomes more expert and therefore better trained to observe and record native games. One pretty figure I invented, as I flattered myself, only to find out later that it is common among the natives of the Caroline Islands. A few of these invented games have been added at the end of the book merely as examples of what may be done.

In the illustrations which accompany the descriptions we have the first serious attempt to show the successive steps in string games by pictures of the fingers picking up and arranging the strings and of the result produced by each movement. Heretofore, as a rule, only finished patterns have been drawn, or stretched out on cards for exhibition in a museum. Moreover, the illustrations represent the various steps as they are seen by the person making the figure. We have observed great care to have the strings and the loops, and their manner of crossing one another, accurately drawn. In a few figures only, where the strings run into small twists or knots in the centre between the hands, it has not been possible to trace individual strings throughout their entire course, but wherever this has been possible, even in the most complex figures, I think the artist has been unusually successful and has rendered faithfully the effects of strain and of deflection produced by crosses, knots, and twists. In illustrating a step which requires that each hand shall perform, independently, the same movement at the same time, in order to reduce the number of drawings without sacrificing any important stages in the process, one drawing, as a rule, serves to show two stages: one hand, usually the left, being represented as beginning the movement, the other hand as completing it (see Fig. 9).

CHAPTER II

MOVEMENTS KNOWN AS FIRST POSITION AND OPENING A-FIGURES BEGINNING WITH OPENING A-AN APACHE DOOR-FIGHTING HEAD-HUNTERS-A SUNSET-OSAGE DIAMONDS-OSAGE TWO DIAMONDS -DRESSING A SKIN-A FISH-SPEAR-A SEA-SNAKE-A KING FISH-BAGOBO DIAMONDS-BAGOBO

TWO DIAMONDS

Τ

FIRST POSITION

HE following movements put the loop on the hands in what for convenience may be called the First Position. Very many string games begin in this way; and the movements should be learned now, as we shall not repeat the description with every figure.

First: Put the little fingers into the loop of string, and separate the hands. You now have a single loop on each little finger passing directly and uncrossed to the opposite little finger.

Second: Turning the hands with the palms away from you, put each thumb into the little finger loop from below, and pick up on the back of the thumb the near little finger string; then, allowing the far little finger string to remain on the

FIG. 11.

little finger, turn the hands with the palms facing each other, return the thumbs to their extended position, and draw the strings tight (Fig. 11).

In the First Position, therefore, there is, on each hand, a string which crosses the palm, and passing behind the thumb runs to the other hand to form the near thumb string of the figure, and passing behind the little finger runs to the other hand to form the far little finger string.

ΙΟ

It is not essential that the loop shall be put on the hands by the movements just described; any method will answer, so long as the proper position of the string is secured. This method, however, has been found to be as easy as any other. The First Position is, of course, absurdly simple, yet it not infrequently puzzles the beginner, largely because it is the reverse of the first steps in the ordinary English Cat's-Cradle known to every child.

OPENING A

More than half of the string figures described in this book open in the same way; to avoid constant repetition therefore, we may follow Drs. Rivers and Haddon (p.

148), and call this very general method of beginning Opening A. It should be learned now, because in the descriptions of the figures in which it occurs, the first movement will be simply noted as Opening A. It is formed by three

movements.

First: Put the loop on the hands in the First Position.

Second: Bring the hands together, and put the right index up under the string which crosses the left palm (Fig. 12), and draw the loop out on the back of the finger by separating the hands.

Third: Bring the hands together again, and put the left index up under that part of the string crossing the palm of the right hand which is between the strings on the right index (Fig. 13), and draw the loop out on the back of the left index by separating the hands.

You now have a loop on each thumb, index, and little finger (Fig. 14). There is a near thumb string and a far little finger string passing directly from one hand to the other, and two crosses formed between them by the near little finger string of one hand becoming the far index string of the other hand, and the far thumb string of one hand becoming the near index string of the other hand.

In forming many of the figures beginning with Opening A it is absolutely necessary to follow the order just given, and take up, first, the left palmar string with the right index, and then the right palmar string with the left index; it will save trouble, therefore, if this order be always followed, even if it make no difference in

FIG. 14.

the result. If the reverse of this order is ever required, of course it will be noted in the description.

AN APACHE DOOR

This figure was taught to me by an Apache girl, Lena Smith, from Jicarilla, New Mexico, at the St. Louis Exposition in September, 1904. Lena spoke very little English and touched a door to signify the name of the figure. I could not get from her the Apache name. She was much amused at my blunders. A Navaho girl told me that all Indians know this figure. In the Philadelphia Free Museum of Science and Art, there are four examples of the finished figure collected by Mr. Stewart Culin and preserved on cards: (1) Li-sisa Poncho, 22722, Navaho, from St. Michael's Mission, Arizona; (2) Pi-cho-wai-nai, 22604, Zuñi, New Mexico; (3) Pi-cho-wai, a-tslo-no-no-nai = a Sling, 22610, Zuñi, New Mexico, and (4), 22729, from Isleta, New Mexico.

First: Opening A.

Second: With the right thumb and index pick up the left near index string close to the left index, and lift the loop entirely off the left index; then put the loop over the left hand and let it drop down on the left wrist. With the left thumb and index pick up the right near index string close to the right index, and lift the loop entirely off the right index; then put the loop over the right hand and let it drop down