CAT’S CRADLE.

Posted on May 26, 2010
Filed Under 1910s, 1960s, Games, Textiles, Women

Jennie, cat’s cradle

Boy baby (eselu naña) complete

Clear Sky, 5th stage

Girl baby (eselu osa), complete.

Gopher, just before releasing the string

Cat’s cradle, New South Wales, 1968.

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A couple days ago I was riding the subway along with a bunch of well dressed teens. Two of the teens were using a shoelace to play cat’s cradle. It was fascinating. I think they made it to level six, which became a star-like shape, then abandoned the game. The best part : a friend helping with cradle moves wore tights collaged with cats. (kinda like this with the coolness of this – i digress)

Here are wobbly photographs from the early 1900s of a woman from South Central California Sierra Miwok tribe exhibiting various cat’s cradle and rope drawing games. The last image is of an Aboriginal girl who broke tribal law, refusing to marry an elder chosen for her. She found refuge with anthropologists in New South Wales, and shows off her cat’s cradles.

via Online Archive of California – Guide to the California Ethnographic Field Photographs, 1900-1960
last image via National Library of Australia

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UPDATE : commenter/friend Jeff H shares this incredible string figure home video.

In this video clip, my grandma tells the Navajo story of how coyote had placed the stars in the sky and shows how to make two constellations using string, Dilyéhé (the Pleiades) and So’ Bidee’í (Star With Horns). She continues by showing other string games, like Many Stars (So’ Łání), Two Coyotes Running Apart (Ma’ii Ałts’áá’ Yilwołí), Open the Gate, Lightening (Atsinitl’ish), the Arrowhead (Béésh Sist’ógii), Unraveling (Wóltáád), and Wood Carrier (Chizh Yooyéłí). – daybreakwarrior

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