Page:String Figures and How to Make Them.djvu/259

A WORM

This is another Navaho figure which I secured from the same Indians who taught me the preceding figure.

First: Hold the string between the thumb and index of each hand so that a short piece passes between the hands and a long loop hangs down. Make a small ring, hanging down, in the short string,

putting the right hand string away from you over the left hand string. insert the index fingers into the ring downward and toward you and with the thumbs in the long hanging loop separate the hands and, turning the index fingers upward and outward, with the palms of the hands facing away from you, draw the strings tight.

Holding the right hand with the palm away from you, move the left hand first to the right between your body and the right hand and then away from you over the right hand, and lay all the left strings, doubled back on the right hand strings, between the right thumb and index (Fig. 499), and hold them there by pressing these two fingers together. Then,

separating the hands slightly (not enough, however, to pull the strings through the right thumb and index), draw the strings moderately tight (Fig. 5oo), and turn the right hand with the palm to the left, and turn the left thumb down and then up toward you, and