Cat's Cradle Game History

In a literal sense a cats cradle is a game played with string in which each player must maneuver their fingers to create different images one of which is the cats cradle.

Cat's cradle game history. The question of who first played cats cradle the childrens game in which two players alternately take from each others fingers an intertwined cord so as always to produce a symmetrical figure is almost as contentious as the origin of its name. That certainly sounds far-fetched today but it was a commonly held superstition back in the 1600s and 1700s. Along with its cousins -- Jacobs ladder cup and saucer crows feet -- it is played by schoolchildren everywhere.

Its origin is unknown and it has been found in wildly diverse indigenous cultures from the Arctic to Europe to Indonesia. The art of making pictures or telling stories with string and your hands or sometimes feet. 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.

Whale and fox. Haddon has pointed out the familiar game of cats-cradle probably had its origin in Asia whence it was introduced into Europe. Cats Cradle String Games by Camilla Gryski 1983.

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 Cradlegets its name from the childrens game. Cats Cradle has moved a few times in its 50 years including to locations on Franklin and Rosemary streets in Chapel Hill.

Though it is most commonly seen as a childrens game in contemporary society cats cradle is one of the oldest and most widespread games found in recorded human history. Cup and Saucer The Witchs Broom Cats Cradle and Jacobs Ladder as well as a brief history of string games. The Oxford English Dictionary describes the origin as fancifull and notes the.

It is thought that this particular game traveled to Europe in the early seventeenth century with the tea trade from Asia. Cats cradle is one of the oldest games in recorded human history and involves creating various string figures either individually or by passing a loop of. Some sources say that children played Cats Cradle in England as early as 1782.