Associating string representations with an Enum that uses integer values?

This can be done with the stdlib Enum, but is much easier with aenum¹:

from aenum import Enum

class Fingers(Enum):

    _init_ = 'value string'

    THUMB = 1, 'two thumbs'
    INDEX = 2, 'offset location'
    MIDDLE = 3, 'average is not median'
    RING = 4, 'round or finger'
    PINKY = 5, 'wee wee wee'

    def __str__(self):
        return self.string

If you want to be able to do look-ups via the string value then implement the new class method _missing_value_ (just _missing_ in the stdlib):

from aenum import Enum

class Fingers(Enum):

    _init_ = 'value string'

    THUMB = 1, 'two thumbs'
    INDEX = 2, 'offset location'
    MIDDLE = 3, 'average is not median'
    RING = 4, 'round or finger'
    PINKY = 5, 'wee wee wee'

    def __str__(self):
        return self.string

    @classmethod
    def _missing_value_(cls, value):
        for member in cls:
            if member.string == value:
                return member

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¹ Disclosure: I am the author of the Python stdlib Enum, the enum34 backport, and the Advanced Enumeration (aenum) library.

Maybe I am missing the point here, but if you define

class Fingers(Enum):
    THUMB = 1
    INDEX = 2
    MIDDLE = 3
    RING = 4
    PINKY = 5

then in Python 3.6 you can do

print (Fingers.THUMB.name.lower())

which I think is what you want.