Cat's Cradle Game History

String games like this one have a rich and varied history.

Cat's cradle game history. Im one of those people who like to have something to fiddle with in their hands and it was easy to carry a loop of string in my pocket. WORDS RECITED DURING STRING GAMES. The use of cats in the cradle to describe something dangerous appears to come from an old wives tale that if allowed into its crib a cat would kill an infant by sucking out its breath.

Cats Cradle is one of the oldest games in human history. Known as fan sheng in China and Jack in the Pulpit in the UK its a simple game that requires teamwork and offers a great sense of satisfaction when mastered. It is well known in China Korea Japan the Philippines and Borneo.

Our Cats Cradle and Other String Games uses the Haddon and Rivers terminology for defining the strings on the fingers and features jumbo yarn. It is a type of string figure. Some sources say that children played Cats Cradle in England as early as 1782.

Included are directions for four classic string games. Variations of the game have been found in cultures across the world including Eastern Asia Africa the Americas and even the Arctic giving the game a significant amount of interest among anthropologists and ethnologists. In the American colonies Cats Cradle or Cratch Cradle was one of the earliest and most popular of all known string games.

It is one of the oldest examples of human play and thus ties in with the idea that the book though grounded in a specific historical moment is principally concerned with the entirety of the human story. Whale and fox. The cats cradle string game has been played since ancient times all over the world.

Cats Cradlegets its name from the childrens game. Our Cats Cradle and Other String Games 3014 uses the Haddon and Rivers terminology for defining the strings on the fingers and features jumbo yarn. The art of making pictures or telling stories with string and your hands or sometimes feet.