cat's cradle
- Museum number
- Oc,89+.207
- Description
-
String game, cat's cradle (women) representing the crayfish (kaiar), mounted onto a piece of card with cotton thread.
- Production date
- 19thC (before 1889)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 0.50 centimetres
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Width: 20.50 centimetres
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Depth: 18.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Moore, 1984:
Played chiefly by women and children.
Western Torres Strait, 1888.
Ref: Haddon, A.C., (ed.), 1901-35, 'Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1912, Vol 4: Arts and Crafts: 320-4.
Haddon, A.C., 1890, 'Ethnography of the western tribe of Torres Straits', Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 19: 361.
String figures were also produced and used in the Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia. See:
Maude, H. 1984. String figures from New Caledonia and The Loyalty Islands, Canberra: The Homa Press
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For a general discussion of Haddon's string figures, see Dinah Eastop (2007) Playing with Haddon's String Figures, Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture, 5:2, 190-205. See also M. Probert 2004, The Torres Strait String Figures in the British Museum A. C. Haddon Collection, Journal Of Museum Ethnography, 16:140-156.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1888
- Acquisition notes
- Collected 1888 and donated in 1889.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc,89+.207
- Additional IDs
-
CDMS number: Oc1889C16.207-213 (old CDMS no.)
