String figure

[7] String figures are probably one of humanity's oldest games,[citation needed] and are spread among an astonishing variety of cultures, even ones as unrelated as Europeans and the Dayaks of Indonesia; Alfred Wallace who, while traveling in Borneo in the 1800s, thought of amusing the Dayak youths with a novel game with string, was in turn very surprised when they proved to be familiar with it, and showed him some figures and transitions that he hadn't previously seen.

[8][9] The anthropologist Louis Leakey has also attributed string figure knowledge with saving his life[10] and described his use of this game in the early 1900s to obtain the cooperation of Sub-Saharan African tribes otherwise unfamiliar with, and suspicious of, Europeans,[8] having been told by his teacher A.C. Haddon, "You can travel anywhere with a smile and a piece of string.

"[10] The Greek physician Heraklas produced the earliest known written description of a string figure in his first century monograph on surgical knots and slings.

[15] String figures were widely studied by anthropologists like James Hornell[17] from the 1880s through around 1900, as they were used in attempts to trace the origin and developments of cultures.

String figures, once thought to have proven monogenesis, appear to have arisen independently as an entertainment pastime in many societies.

Many figures were collected and described from south-east Asia, Japan, South America, West Indies, Pacific Islanders, Inuit and other Native Americans.