3

This article presents the unpublished corpus of string figures collected in New Caledonia by the linguist Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre in the 1960s. Found in Jean-Claude Rivierre’s archives, after his death in 2018, this corpus of more than 50 string figures from the paicî-cèmuhî area is a highly valuable contribution, expanding the few publications there are on Kanak string figures. The first part of this article contextualizes Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre’s work on string figures, consisting of a few notebooks, accompanied by a typed manuscript. In addition to containing the collated corpus, these documents allow us to highlight the methodology implemented by the researcher. The second part affords an insight into the procedures involved in this corpus, while presenting the making of two (series of) string figures, illustrated by photographs, some of which were taken by the Rivierres themselves.