Talk:String figure

Page name

Re: request for page MOVE "String_figure" --> "string_figures"

There is a substantial international community of string figure enthusiasts, including the International String Figure Association (www.isfa.org )

The consensus is that the primary entry in the wikipedia should be under "string_figures" i.e. lower case and PLURAL, NOT, as now, "String_figure" (i.e. Initial caps and singular).

If you can make that change, please do so.

Frankatca Frank Ferguson f2@CAInc.com
-- Frankatca 18:00, 17 Jan 2005

First, if you look at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions), article names with leading lower-car characters are not supported. I will add the message about the name being incorrect. Second, about the plural being preferred, Wikipedia goes with the singular unless the plural is nonsensical (e.g. "pants"). You called yourselves the "String Figure Association", so clearly the singular is viable. I will note that a Wikipedia:Redirect from String figures to String figure already exists. I will make a note about the incorrect caps, using the standard template for so doing. Thank you. Noel (talk) 19:52, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

NPOV

This article is very non-NPOV and needs to be fixed immediately. Clearly there is far too much bias towards string figurerers.

How so? Can you give an example? I don't find it that clear at all. Also, Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks!. Hyacinth 03:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment from article

• NOTE: Even though these words I type are more on the "following" side of string figures, I encourage you to make your own string figures. After all, some of the most famous string figures were just developed by people messing around with string and seeing what they could find.

I removed the above from below the list of figures and moves. Hyacinth 07:55, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

String Theory

The reference to string theory is completely off-base. There are no citations and moreover, even a cursory study of string theory demonstrates that it has nothing at all to do with "the mathematical study of string figures or how many possible ways any one figure may be made". It is possible that the original writer was trying to refer to some field in combinatorics or topography, and if that is the case, some research should be done and the proper reference included. For now, I've removed it entirely, since it is wildly untrue. JWAbrams (talk) 16:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Navaho

Hyacinth, please do not change loop back to leap the next time I edit it. I am a member of ISFA, and have a lot of experience with string figures. Please trust me when I say it is not navaho LEAP, it is navaho LOOP. -Turbokoala 12:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Please start new discussion topics at the bottom of the talk page, thanks. See Wikipedia:Talk.

Unfortunately wikipedia has a policy: Wikipedia:No original research, and the complimentary Wikipedia:Citing sources, which prevent your personal credentials and experience from being considered as evidence towards your argument.

There are ways around this whole argument. Gryski (1985, p.10) uses "to navaho a loop".

However, Elffers and Schuyt (1979, p.30) call it "the Navaho leap" saying "On the right we show three ways in which the Navaho Indians make a loop leap over another loop above it..." (Less strong an argument is that it is a movement, such as a leap, not a loop, and a loop is not an move (its a loop).)

Perhaps there is some disagreement among published works (which Gryski conviently avoids). In that case the disagreement should be described. See: Wikipedia:NPOV.

User:Hyacinth 18:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Religious Significance?

If I'm not mistaken I think I read somewhere about string figures having some religious significance among Inuits (in particular shamans). (dont qoute me on this.).

Please sign your posts on talk pages per Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Thanks!

Since string figures may be used to illustrate stories they may have religious signifigance to all groups who use them. For instance, string figures are named, in Europe and America, after Christian stories (such as the manger or upside down cat's cradle). Hyacinth 18:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Prevalence

This article claims that Heraklas described the first "string figures." According to my research, Heraklas was a Greek physician who described knots to use in medical situations. That doesn't qualify as a string figure according to the definition given in the article. Also, it is claimed that string figures are common across the world in different cultures, but the citation given to support this claim does nothing more to back this statement up than to state the same thing on a different webpage. What other cultures, and when? It seems to me that the prevalence of string figures as a whole has been exaggerated by this article and should probably be more grounded. Chachilongbow (talk) 07:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

You may wish to quote the definition in the article to which you refer since the current definition, roughly, "design formed by string on one's body" would include a design produced on one's body and kept there for medical purposes. Hyacinth (talk) 04:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added additional detail to the article regarding Heraklas' description of a single string figure, his "knot" number XIII (13). The English translation of the Greek provided in Cyrus Day's book is clearly describing a string figure beginning with Jayne's "Opening A". While the final medical use of this arrangement of cord doesn't involve the hands, his instructions explain how it is formed with the hands in the exact manner of a string figure. Here's the beginning of the translation provided by Day:

For the tying of the plinthios noose, a cord forming a circle, that is, having no ends, is procured and placed round both hands on the space between the thumb and little finger. It is also placed round the index finger, so that six loops are produced, three on each hand, on the little finger, on the index finger, and on the thumb...

While not completely unambiguous, those familiar with string figures should find this a reasonably lucid description of Opening A. The description goes on the describe three further steps: first, the thumb loops are picked up by and transfered to the ring fingers, then the pinky loops are picked up by and transfered to the index fingers. Last, the original, lower loops on the index fingers are released over the loops just transfered from the pinkies. The result is as shown in Jayne's Fig. 359 (the bottom figure on the page to the right), although the loops are around the index and ring fingers rather than the thumb and index as shown. --Dfred (talk) 14:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Book

There is the Book "String Figures and How to Make Them", by CF Jayne in Wikimedia Commons. I dont how to link it, please help.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:String_Figures_and_How_to_Make_Them.djvu

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/String_Figures_and_How_to_Make_Them.djvu —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.60.118.58 (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikimedia_Commons#Embedding_Commons.27_media_in_Wikipedia_articles: "In general, to embed a Wikimedia Commons media file in Wikipedia, just include it in the same way as if it were to be stored locally." Hyacinth (talk) 22:43, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

For an example of embedding a page from a djvu file, see the section immediately above. It did take a little research to figure out the exact format required. See http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Help:DjVu_files#Displaying_a_particular_page. --Dfred (talk) 14:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Videos

I will soon make Apache Tent and Jacobs Ladder because those are the only ones I know. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 09:07, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Whai (basketball) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:05, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Alternative meaning

The phrase "string figure" is common in recreational and serious mathematics, but with a different meaning: A figure obtained by first hammering nails in N points equally spaced around a circle drawn on a wooden board, and then using string or thread to connect all pairs of nails. Or, the idealized mathematical version of this, replacing nails by points and string by line segments.

The fine details of the string figure will depend heavily on the number theoretic properties of N. But for N restricted to lie within a reasonable range, say from 30 to 100, the resulting string figures have many similarities: a series of concentric rings at different radii, some areas darker than others, always with a remarkable symmetry.

Problematic term

I believe it is problematic to use “Navaho” as a verb in this context. Kathleen Haddon, the white woman who coined the term in 1911, used the phrase “the mind of the ingenious savage” in the same book, so her terms should definitely be held with suspicion. 42thomas42 (talk) 15:34, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but we can't state that in Wikipedia's voice without a reliable source discussing the usage of the term. We can't cite "personal communications". Who made this request of the ISFA? How can we verify it? --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 16:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you Jpgordon for the feedback. I emailed them this morning so I am 100% certain that they have been asked. I did have a feeling that “personal communications” wouldn’t fly on Wikipedia, but I wasn’t sure what else to do, and I know that I’ve seen that an academic papers before, so I figured it was worth a try. The other sentence that I had added that also got deleted was properly sourced, so I’m not sure why that one got deleted: “Kathleen Haddon, the first to use “Navajo” as a verb in string figure technique in print, in her 1911 book introducing this term also spoke about “the mind of the ingenious savage,” so it would be prudent to reevaluate terms she introduced (p. xv, “Cat's Cradles from Many Lands,” London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1911. ISBN 978-1-177-39789-6.)” Editor who deleted it said “Not encyclopedic in tone, not properly referenced and why is the organization considered a rs”. So far as I can tell, the ISFA is the authoritative determiner of string figure terms, so they would be the appropriate body to make a decision on this matter. They are the organization that other sites refer to. I really want some thing to be stated noting that it is at the very least potentially a harmful phrase. Surely there is some thing I could add that would be acceptable?? This all started because I gave my friend that has native ancestry on a pacific island a gift of a string figure book and a string for Christmas, not knowing that this term would be inside the book. She was so offended by this term that she gave me the present back and wanted no part of it. So this term has already caused harm, and is likely to cause additional harm, and to have that harm be greater if there’s not at least some kind of qualifying comment associated with it. Can somebody give me advice on how to accomplish this? It must be possible to flag racist content!42thomas42 (talk) 02:22, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia's not the right place for this. That one person finds a term "potentially offensive" is not grounds for Wikipedia to take a stand against the (common among string figure students) expression. That's why we're calling for reliable sources. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 15:59, 28 December 2023 (UTC)