"Ori" is the japanese word for folding and "kami" is the japanese word for paper.
Origami originates in China in the first or second century. In the 6th century it spread to
Japan.
First, it was something that was mainly done by rich people but when paper became cheaper
more and more people were doing origami.
The first book with folding-instuctions is from 1797 and is called: "How to fold 1000 cranes".
Nowadays people are doing origami almost everywhere around the world and there are
many books with folding-instructions.
This is a page of
the first origami-book ever.Click on the picture if you want to see all the
pages of this book.