String-figure making

This chapter is about string figures, also known as cat’s-cradles. It focuses on the processual nature of material culture and the mutually constitutive nature of persons and objects demonstrated by an analysis of string-figure making. String figures, like objects used as tools, question where the body or subject ends and where the artefact or object begins. In string-figure making, a loop of string is held around a person’s hands or other body parts. The person moves and so the string and body take up different positions. The person may talk or sing in a social performance related to the representation created; the representation is then often transformed during string-figure making. This chapter considers how changing representations arise from a process of objectification of the string and the body parts as a totality, where body parts and string function as a single entity. During this process of objectification, often accompanied by singing or joking, the knowledge of movement becomes embodied, as the person learns the moves required to make the string figure without the need for explanation.