Cat's Cradle Game History

Cats Cradle String Games by Camilla Gryski 1983.

Cat's cradle game history. String figures are a storytelling tradition in many cultures around the world including among Arctic Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal. It has also spread to some extent among the Asiatic islands. It is thought that this particular game traveled to Europe in the early seventeenth century with the tea trade from Asia.

The cats cradle is a game played with string one of the oldest games in human history. Haddon has pointed out the familiar game of cats-cradle probably had its origin in Asia whence it was introduced into Europe. Cats Cradle has moved a few times in its 50 years including to locations on Franklin and Rosemary streets in Chapel Hill.

It is a type of string figure. And it may be known in Java Celebes and Australia. According to Edward Tregear in The Maori race 1904 the Cats Cradle whai huhi or maui was known to the Maoris as to almost all the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago and South SeasIt was played with the two hands and a piece of string assuming very complicated forms.

Some sources say that children played Cats Cradle in England as early as 1782. It is probably one of the oldest games. I had to look up the history of Cats Cradle and was surprised to find that this clever game is played by children EVERYWHERE.

Cats Cradle is one of the oldest games in human history. Whale and fox. 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.

Along with its cousins -- Jacobs ladder cup and saucer crows feet -- it is played by schoolchildren everywhere. In the American colonies Cats Cradle or Cratch Cradle was one of the earliest and most popular of all known string games. 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.