The Golden Bough (Third Edition, Vol. 7 of 12) - Mirrors

125the plants grow high; by playing cat's cradle they cause theleaves of the yams to spread and the stalks to intertwine, evenas the players spread their hands and twine the string about theirfingers; by spinning fruits they make the taro plants to turn andbroaden; and by spearing the taro leaves they induce the plantsto set tubers. 328 In telling the legends the story-tellers mentionthe names of the powerful beings who first created the fruits ofthe earth, and the mere mention of their names avails, on theprinciple of the magical equivalence of names and persons or328 On the principles of homoeopathic or imitative magic, see The Magic Artand the Evolution of Kings, i. 52 sqq. The Esquimaux play cat's cradle as acharm to catch the sun in the meshes of the string and so prevent him fromsinking below the horizon in winter. See The Magic Art and the Evolution ofKings, i. 316 sq. Cat's cradle is played as a game by savages in many parts ofthe world, including the Torres Straits Islands, the Andaman Islands, Africa,and America. See A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (London and New York,1898), pp. 224-232; Miss Kathleen Haddon, Cat's Cradles from Many Lands(London, 1911). For example, the Indians of North-western Brazil play manygames of cat's cradle, each of which has its special name, such as the Bow, theMoon, the Pleiades, the Armadillo, the Spider, the Caterpillar, and the Guts ofthe Tapir. See Th. Koch-Grünberg, Zwei Jahre unter den Indianern (Berlin,1909-1910), i. 120, 123, 252, 253, ii. 127, 131. Finding the game played as amagical rite to stay the sun or promote the growth of the crops among peoplesso distant from each other as the Esquimaux and the natives of New Guinea,we may reasonably surmise that it has been put to similar uses by many otherpeoples, though civilised observers have commonly seen in it nothing morethan a pastime. Probably many games have thus originated in magical rites.When their old serious meaning was forgotten, they continued to be practisedsimply for the amusement they afforded the players. Another such game seemsto be the “Tug of War.” See The Golden Bough, 2 iii. 95.