created 2025-06-30, & modified, =this.modified
rel:Malekula - A Vanish People in the New Hebrides Geometrical Drawings from Malekula and Other Islands of the New Hebrides On Hands
A.C. Haddon
“You can travel anywhere with a smile and a piece of string.
Mark Sherman
“String figures, once completed, are dissolved within seconds. The wonderful thing about string figures is the process of making them … the feel of the string on your fingers. The kinesthetic sense of making string figures is the same gratification you get from flying a kite; you can feel the tugging of the string—the motion is what’s pleasurable. There is a sense of tension, and then when you drop loops off your fingers and display the design, you have a sense of release. It’s a very dynamic process.”
A string figure is a design formed by manipulating string on, around, and using one’s fingers or sometimes between the fingers of multiple people.
They can be part of a game or used as part of a story (string story). They have also been used as divination.
String figures are perhaps one of humanity’s oldest games, and are spread among a variety of cultures.
Scene from Agosto’s commercial: Engineers extend a multiperson string figure of the new Audi A4.
One of the first methods of recording figures and sets of terminology was an anatomical system proposed in “A Method of Recording String Figures and Tricks” by W. H. R. Rivers and A. C. Haddon.
Notation
