Sand Drawing Versus String Figure-Making: Geometric and Algorithmic Practices in Northern Ambrym, Vanuatu

This chapter aims to compare—through an ethnomathematical approach—two activities carried out by the Northern Ambrym Islanders (Vanuatu, South Pacific), and locally termed using the same vernacular verb tu (lit. “to write”). These practices consist in making a figure, either with a loop of string (“string figure-making”, using fingers and sometimes feet and mouth) or by drawing a continuous line in the sand with one finger (“sand drawing”). Initially, we examine the cultural and symbolic aspects of both practices, bringing to light that the making of string figures and sand drawings are both means of recording and expressing knowledge relating to particular mythological entities, rituals, or environmental elements, in Northern Ambrym society. Secondly, by focusing on concepts such as operation, procedure/algorithm, sub-procedure, symmetry, transformation and iteration, we demonstrate that both practices share geometric and algorithmic properties. The chapter ends by providing an overview of a pedagogical experiment, aiming at bringing both string figure-making and sand drawing practices into a local mathematics classroom. It thus contributes to the discussions that are currently occurring in Vanuatu, related to the development of culturally based curricula.