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String figures in New Guinea and Arctic
Eric Vandendriessche has worked in the DEA of Paris VII University, under the supervision of Karine Chemla on « string figures ». A string figure is generally made by taking a piece of flexible string, about eight feet long, knotting it at the end so as to make it into a closed loop, and then by weaving or twisting it with the fingers (or sometimes with the feet or the mouth) in a same defined way. After a sequence involving several operations a design is shown to others. This type of activity used to exist in most traditional societies all around the world.
Until the middle of the XXth century this game was practiced in many traditional societies (ocanian, Eskimo, latin American, Australian, African, Asian…). Since the end of the 19 th century, ethnographers and explorers have collected a number of string figures. These ethnographical documents have been the elements from which Eric Vandendriessche’s work started, with a comparative study of two corpora.
[Senft, Gunter et Senft, Barbara 1986]
The first corpus, about string figures practiced in the Trobriand Islands, was published by Gunter and Barbara Senf (2) in 1986. The second one was recorded by the French explorer Paul-Emile Victor (3)in 1935/36, on the East coast of Greenland, in a province called Angmassalik. This study has shown that a string figure may be truly seen as an algorithm, using concepts such as operations, sub-procedures, iterations, and transformations. This seems to confirm the existing link between string figures and mathematics. The comparison between the string figures made in such different places shows that the simple operations involved for the procedures are usually very similar whereas the “sub-procedures” ( a set of several simple operations) are more specific and probably deeply linked to the culture.
For the next stage of Eric Vandendriessche’s project, which he will follow in his PhD, he needs to carry out ethnographic observations. Today, there are few areas in the world where string figure activities exist. Papua New Guinea and in particular the Trobriand Islands under one hand and Arctic on the other are some of the rare places where such activities can still be observed. During his field work, Eric Vandendriessche hopes to learn how string figures are taught, hoping to thus get an insight into the way these figures are though by those who invent new figures. He also intends to develop a mathematical theory describing string figures.
Some String figures of Angmagssalik
[Victor, Paul-Emile 1940]
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