Abstract
This chapter argues that the process of making a string figure can be analyzed as a series of “simple movements”—or “elementary operations”. A string figure can thus be seen as the result of a “procedure”. Published collections of string figures provide evidence that ordered sets of elementary operations (or sub-procedures), having a noticeable impact on certain configurations of the string, have been clearly identified, memorized and sometimes named by string figure practitioners within different societies. The creation of string figures can thus be regarded as the result of an intellectual process of organizing elementary operations through genuine “algorithms” based on investigations of complex spatial configurations, and constantly dealing with the concepts of transformation and iteration.
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Notes
- 1.
Honor Maude (1905–2001) was Henry Evans Maude’s wife. He spent many years as a civil servant in the colonial British colonies of the Pacific, then taught History of the Pacific at the Australian National University in Canberra. During Maudes’ stays in the Pacific Islands, Honor Maude developed an interest in string figures and made numerous collections throughout the Pacific.
- 2.
In this book, Honor Maude compiled two unpublished collections of string figures from the Solomon Islands. The first was gathered in 1928–1929 by Raymond Firth (1901–2002) and the second by Christa de Coppet in 1963–1965. Firth collected Niu string figure in Fenualoa. Coppet found the same procedure as Uuma (a shell breast ornament), three decades later in Takatake, a village of the Malaita province.
- 3.
Honor Maude uses the expressions “distal to” and “proximal to” which mean respectively “from the distal side” and “from the proximal side”.
- 4.
Caroline Furness Jayne had first described this “movement”, without naming it, in her book (1962, pp. 260–264, first edition 1906). Later, in 1930, Kathleen Haddon described the same operation under the vernacular term “Pindiki” without specifying which vernacular language this term came from Haddon (1930, p. 156).
- 5.
- 6.
Anglican minister Philip Noble stayed in Papua New Guinea from 1972 to 1975, as a missionary. On this occasion, he became interested in string figure-making and documented a corpus of 140 procedures (Noble 1979).
- 7.
See Rosser and Hornell (1932, p. 47). Hornell and Rosser actually do not detail the instructions for making figure beira. However, they refer to Tongan string figure Laoukape described by Hornell in a previous publication devoted to string figures from Fiji and Western Polynesia (Hornell 1927). Procedure Laoukape actually slightly differs in the making of the configuration concluding Ten Men’s step 5. Let’s not focus for the moment on this variation; it will be analysed later in the book.
- 8.
See Sect. 3.4.3 (Transformation through iteration).
- 9.
Mary-Rousselière’s spelling—although it does not match the conventional system adopted in the 1970s to transcribe the Inuit language (Inuktitut).
- 10.
This operation has been used by American mathematician Thomas Storer as a starting point for a new conceptualization of string figure-making (Heart-sequence). We will return to this, in greater detail, in Part II of this book.
- 11.
- 12.
Instructions adapted from Jenness (1920, p. 300).
- 13.
Instructions adapted from Jenness (1920, p. 300).
- 14.
See for instance, procedures Guva’ta (The Seine) or Yavunu’ga (The Pleiades) (Jenness 1920, pp. 309–310). Sequence “Nauwa - Luatataga - Release the thumbs” is a sub-procedure involved in the making of several string figures in the neighbouring islands of the Trobriand archipelago. I will come back to it below, in Part IV (Sect. 9.3) of this book.
- 15.
This procedure was recorded in 1902 by anthropologist William Henry Furness in a village in Uap, one of the Caroline Islands (Jayne 1962, pp. 252–259). Very similar procedures have been collected in several places throughout the Pacific (Noble 1979, pp. 41–42; Maude 1978, pp. 59–60). In Part IV, we will see that this string figure procedure is known in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea, under the name Tokopokutu (lice comb).
- 16.
To my knowledge, this expression is due to Honor Maude (Maude and Firth 1970, p. 13).
- 17.
This film was shot as part of German ethnolinguist Gunter Senft’s research program in the Trobriand Islands. This documentary film and an article on Trobriand string figures that Senft published in collaboration with his wife Barbara Senft (Senft and Senft 1986), proved to be of great value for my own fieldwork in the Trobriand Islands. We will return to this matter in Part IV.
- 18.
See Part IV.
- 19.
In 1978, Japanese mathematician Hiroshi Noguchi and Anglican missionary Philip Noble have created the International String Figure Association (ISFA) (website: www.isfa.org). This organization aims to bring together people of all nationalities who share an interest in string figures. It has a hundred members and publishes a bibliography as well as an annual bulletin.
- 20.
The difference lies in the way the first normal position is reached. Moreover, Ten Men and Mother’s first normal positions are not exactly identical. Actually, they differ in a single simple crossing. See the discussion about Conf(A) and Conf(B) in Sect. 6.4.1.
- 21.
See Maude (1978, pp. 58–59). This procedure is very close to Pilun, found in the Caroline Islands and described above to illustrate the concept of Normal Position.
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Vandendriessche, E. (2015). A Conceptualization of String Figure-Making. In: String Figures as Mathematics?. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, vol 36. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-11994-6_3
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