One wonders what inspired this figure. Perhaps rats were seen jumping off a ship, and then mounting a log. Rats originated in Asia, but have spread throughout the world, mostly on board ships. It is believed that there are as many rats as people in the world. Elsewhere, in the Arctic this figure represents two dogs on a hill.
This string figure resembles ‘The Leashing of Lochiel’s Dogs’ in Jayne’s book, but instead of loops on two fingers of each hand, here we have loops on four fingers of each hand.
For centuries people from around the world have gazed in awe at the nighttime sky. Their impressions are often immortalized in their string figures. In this geometrical design from Africa the small diamonds represent stars.
The flying fox is a kind of fruit bat that actually uses sight rather than echo-location in maintaining orientation. Vampire bats feed exclusively on the blood of living animals. They bite their victims and then lap up the blood with their tongue. Their saliva contains an anticoagulant that causes the wound to seep for several hours.
This wonderful figure from Brazil looks complicated but is actually quite simple to make. It was previously collected by Stig Rydén in the 1930s, but no method of construction was recorded. Chang Whan obtained it in 1997 from a Karajá Indian who still knew how to make it.
Here is a realistic string figure turtle. Turtles have existed since the time of the earliest dinosaurs, 200 million years ago. Some types of turtles live on land, and others live in fresh water or the ocean. They all breathe using lungs, and all lay eggs on land. Sadly, almost half the known species are rare or threatened with extinction.
The earliest recorded carousel device appears in a Byzantine etching from ad 500. It portrays riders swinging in baskets tied to a center pole. Later on, riders in a ring-spearing tournament used their lances to spear small rings suspended between two posts while moving at full gallop. The mechanical carousel was born in France, around 1680, where wooden horses without legs were attached to a center pole. People trained for spearing tournaments on these horses.
