Yarn figures: simple hobbies or texts of a universal language?
Keywords:
string games, yarns figures, common language, ancient practiceAbstract
This work tries to shed light on an ancient practice shared by the vast majority of societies with an oral tradition and that, even today, through centuries and obstacles, indigenous peoples from all over the World continue to masterfully develop. Despite their peculiarities and mysteries, their uses and charm, from a European perspective, yarn figures were perceived as a mere game spread among primitive peoples (Furness Jayne, 1906). This is a perception still present in many current investigations that continue framing “thread games” in the field of playful, recreational and not serious activities. The objective, then, is to fully understand this practice, considering the various functions and their nature, which is many times sacred, other times, magical, and that communities envisaged in the pictures that formed from ropes knotted at their ends.
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