Early americans...and native americans ... made many different types of dolls, but it is believed that the earliest native american dolls were probably not play toys. Most dolls were made of roots, stone, coral, or clay and were probably first used in medicine, fertility, or birthing
It was probley that most of the tiny symbolic dolls served as companions to sick or dying children and was taken with them into the afterlife. People also created small symbolic dolls from roots, wood, or bone to serve as love dolls. Along with love medicines, these dolls, carefully wrapped and securely tied together, were supposed to ensure successful unions between two people.
But some was made more for sinister level, as they were no doubt created for the purposes of witchcraft or harm. In every tribal group there were powerful personal safeguards against the dark side, or black medicine.
Loving parents and relatives also made various dolls for their children to amuse and comfort them. They created miniature kayaks, tipis, cradleboards, and such By playing with these precise and detailed toys, the children learned how to make and use the full-sized models as they grew up.
Someof these dolls were classic works of art, dressed up in soft buckskins or cloth with delicate quill work or beaded details. These special childhood dolls, including ones like the Hopi Kachinas, Eskimo dolls, and Iroquois and Cherokee corn husk dolls, have long been coveted by collectors. When some saw that their play toys could be sold to appreciative white tourists, it added another dimension to their doll making. They began to create dolls to suit the fancies of adults and children from other cultures.
Certain native american dolls grew out of particular periods of the Nation's history, like the Skookum dolls of the late 1800's. Often sold from the railway platforms along train routes and through early catalogues, these were contrived to entice early travelers to venture across the American West. Fine buckskin dolls, lovingly adorned with beaded attire, accompanied by tipis, toy horses and travois, moved from the hands of the Plains children into those of museum ethnographers and wealthy private collectors. Today the development of modern tourism has done much to sustain the craftsmen who make Native dolls, from the bright palmetto of the Florida Seminoles to the clay storyteller dolls of the Pueblo Southwest. When collecting dolls, always ensure that a certificate of authenticity is attached. You wouldn't want your doll made and came from china.
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