Making string figures between your fingers is a centuries-old tradition. In every Amazonian community we visited, we found someone keeping the figures and magic alive. They’d use pieces of fishing line, strings from shrimp nets, or even cotton strings they’d spun themselves. And their nimble fingers would show us: the fish behind the branch, the 4-diamond net, the star, the neck magic, the 9-point star, the thread-the-needle magic, the glasses, the bear foot, and others.