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THE DOLL BOOK •

LAURA B. STARR

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR
MANY HALF-TONES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

THE OUTING PUBLISHING COMPANY

MCMVIII

AU Rights Reserved

.<?

The color reprodudions in this book were
executed by the Japanese artist, Kaico Morita

Spanish doll with sailor costume. This is typical of the
dolls that Spain makes "for export"

MR. STEWART CULIN

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF HIS KINDLY

ADVICE AND HAPPY SUGGESTIONS IN

THE COMPILATION OF

THIS BOOK

250196

FOREWORD

To all those who are interested in dolls, from
the children who play with them to the students
of their ethnological and educational aspects, I
dedicate this story of the doll.

I take this opportunity of acknowledging my
indebtedness to those who have contributed to my
store of information, among whom are several
authors unknown to me, as I found many unsigned
paragraphs on the subject in magazines and news-
papers. I am also grateful to the many friends
who have brought and sent me dolls and puppets
from all parts of the earth.

Especially are my thanks due to Mrs. John
Cooper, of Shanghai, who from the first shared
my enthusiasm and who has made my collection
unique by her contribution of old and valuable
Chinese and Japanese dolls.

My collection owes its origin to the following
incident: In Yokohama, while shopping with a
friend, I saw a number of Japanese manikins. I
admired them so much that one of them was put
into my Christmas stocking, making the nucleus

vii

FOREWORD

around which I have gathered several hundred
character dolls.

During a six years' tour around the world, I
had time and opportunity to study doll-lore in
many countries. I found that the love of the doll
is common to children of every land, and that
many legends and folk-tales in which the doll
figures, bear a striking resemblance to each other,
though they may come from widely diverse parts
of the earth — ^facts from which it is but natural
to conclude that dolls are among the most potent
factors in the civilization of the world.

The study of the doll has given me great pleas-
ure, which I trust will be shared by my readers.
Of these, the children will delight in the pictures
of many forms of their beloved playthings; while
the older readers may find food for thought in the
ethnological, historic, and sociological aspect which
the subject presents.

LAURA B. STARR

Pen and BbubS Club

New Yosk

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAOB

I Antiquity of the Doll . . . . .3

II Etymology of the Doll . . . .13

III Some Historic Dolls and Others . . .19

IV Puppets and Marionettes . . . . .31
V Fashion Dolls ....... 45

VI Oriental Dolls ....... 51

VII Japanese Dolls 68

VIII Dolls Possessed of Supernatural Powers . 78

IX Some Remarkable Collections . . . .88

X Dolls of the Nativity ..... lOfii

XI My Collection . . . . . . . 115

Xn My Collection (Continued) . .... 123

XIII My Collection (Continued). . . . .128

XIV My Collection (Continued). .... 145
XV Fetish Dolls 155

XVI The Manufacture of Dolls .... 163

XVII Doll Curiosities 175

XVIII Curious Customs and Tales of Dolls . .183

XIX North American Indian Dolls. . . . 193

CONTENTS

CHAPTEB

XX Home-made Dolls

XXI Home-made Dolls {Continued)

XXII Home-made Dolls {Continued)

XXIII Home-made Dolls {Continv£d)

XXIV Home-made Dolls {Continued)

XXV The Educational Value of the Doll

PAGE

. 198
. 203
.209
. 216
. 223
. 230

ILLUSTRATIONS

Spanish Doll with Sailor Costume . . . . Frontispiece

FACINa
PAGE

Old Egyptian Dolls, 1100 b.c 6

Congo Iron Dolls ......... 10

Zuni Indian Bead Doll 10

Dolls from Madeira 10

Eskimo Dolls 10

Hindu Dolls 20

Dolls in Deerfield Memorial Hall 28

Cedar Bark Dolls from Vancouver Island 36

Russian Court Costumes 40

East Indian King and Queen 46

Chinese Antique and Tilt-up Doll 62

Chinese Marionettes ......... 66

A Manchu General and His Wife 60

Mikado and Wife 66

Chinese Baby 70

Japanese Baby .......... 70

Japanese Doll with Five Wigs 76

The Blessed Bambino 80

Swiss Dolls and a Persian ........ 88

Siberian Dolls, from Baron Kroff's Bay . . . . .94

Dutch, Maarken and North Holland Dolls 100

Miss Maude Brewer's Collection of Antique Dolls .... 104

Persian Doll 116

Parsee Dancing Girl . . . . . . . • .116

Lebanon Doll ' . . . -120

Spanish Doll from Salonica ........ 124

Lace-maker from Le Puy, France 130

ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING
PAGE

Figure from Nativity Scene, Rome 130

Danish, Swedish, and Two Norwegian Costumes; Hardanger Bride,

Norway 136

New Haven Fish-wife, Two Black Forest and Two Nicaraguan Dolls . 136
Cowboy, Uncle Sam, and Goddess of Liberty . . . . 140

Lake George Papoose and Labrador Dolls 144

San Carlos Doll and Cradle-board, Soudanese DoU . . . 144
Kaugnawauga Indian on Snowshoes ...... 150

Indian Woman .......... 150

Seminole Indian Dolls ......... 150

Florentine Misericordia ........ 156

Mexican Runner .......... 156

Zuni Indian God Doll 160

Irish Boy of Seventeenth Century, Irish Woman and Colleen . . 164

Alaska, Corn Husk and French Rag Doll 172

Italian Nurse and Baby, Vienna Baby, and Brazilian Nurse and Baby 172

Welsh, Highlander and Canary Island Dolls 184

A Pair from the Austrian Tyrol 188

Indian Dolls in Canoe ........ 194

Indian Doll in Toboggan ........ 194

A Young Arab of Quality and a Donkey Boy .... 200

Spanish Toreador, Basque Country Dolls, and Black Virgin of Lyons,

France 200

String Doll 208

Shoshone and Cheyenne Indian Dolls 208

Roumanian Princess (Fifteenth Century) 214

Roumanian Peasant ......... 214

Roumanian Woman from Brest, France 214

Cannes and Aries Dolls 220

Colonial Quilting Bee 226

Pilgrim Dolls . . . ' 232

Xll

THE DOLL BOOK

CHAPTER I

ANTIQUITY OF THE DOLL

WHO played with the first doll; how was
it fashioned; when and where was it
evolved, are questions to which history
fails to give a satisfactory answer.
We search the archives of the past, we unearth
Egypt to discover the secret, we wander through
pagan Rome, we travel to India, to the cradle of
our civilization, as far back as documentary evi-
dence, legend or myth will carry us, and we find
dolls. Recorded history does not go back to the
time when there were no dolls.

They are found in the sanctuary of the pagan,
in the tombs of the dead; pictured in quaint and
sometimes awkward lines in plaster and stone,
that have withstood the elements for thousands of
years.

Since time was they have been, apparently, the
presiding deity of the hearthstone and the cradle.
Most people would subscribe to the popular theory

THE DOLL BOOK

that the mother impulse is so strong in every child
that she must have some object upon which to
lavish her childish affection, and that the most
natural object is a doll built on somewhat the same
lines as the baby brother or sister or some of the
"grown ups" of the family.

The gathered opinions of various early and classic
writers point to the probability that the doll, as the
image of a human or superhuman creature, had an
ecclesiastical origin and was used in the ceremonies
of the religion which preceded Brahmanism.

Later with the religion it was carried to China
and Egypt and from thence made its way to all the
other countries of the globe. So much for theory.

That dolls were common in the time of Moses
is certain, for we read that in those sarcophagi,
which are frequently exhumed in Egypt, there have
been found beside the poor little baby mummies
pathetically comical little imitations of themselves
placed there by loving mothers, within reach of
the cold little baby fingers.

In "Ave Roma Immortalis," Marion Crawford
speaks of children's dolls of centuries ago, "made
of rags and stuffed with the waste from their
mothers' spindles and looms." He also tells of
eflSgies of bullrushes, which the pontiffs and ves-
tals came to throw into the Tiber from the Sub-
lician bridge on the Ides of May.

ANTIQUITY OF THE DOLL

In the museums at Naples and Rome there are
numbers of terra-cotta dolls that were found in
the ruins of Pompeii; pathetic little remains of
happy childhood.

When Herculaneum was being excavated, there
was found the figure of a little girl with a doll
clasped tightly in her arms, — not even death could
divide the two.

The presence of dolls in the graves of children
is accounted for by the fact that it was an ancient
custom to bury a child's toys with it in the expecta-
tion that the spirit forms of the inanimate things
would rise with the child and amuse it in the spirit
world as they had done in this.

Early writers tell us that a custom among the
pagans required children to make votive offerings of
their toys and playthings to the gods in the temples,
when they had reached a certain age. This custom
still obtains in certain parts of the Orient.

The oldest dolls in the world are in the British
Museum. They were found in the tombs of
Egyptian children and some among them are more
than 4,000 years old.

Queer little manikins they are but they com-
mand immense respect as being the veritable doll-
babies which the little brown-skinned children of
Pharaoh's land loved and cuddled and put to
sleep centuries before the Christ child was born.

THE DOLL BOOK

The collection is labeled "Early Egyptian Dolls,"
with dates ranging from 1,000 to 4,400 years b. c.
There is a great variety of them, as to material,
form and decorations. Clothes evidently were
thought superfluous or the material of which they
were made has vanished, for there is nothing that
might even by a vivid imagination be thought to
represent clothing. These small images are made
of ivory, clay, wood and bronze.

The dolls in one group have curious heads of
clay to which strings of colored beads have been
attached either to represent hair or perhaps the
face veil, which is still worn by many Eastern
women, though in these days the beads are inter-
spersed with coin which represents the woman's
dower or fortune. They have neither feet nor legs
which peculiarity is probably accounted for by the
fact that at that time the extremities of babies
were swathed about with yards of cloth and it was
thought hardly worth while to carve feet and legs
that would never be in evidence. The long flat
body of one of this group is marked off in squares
like a checkerboard, possibly having been used
for a game of some sort. This particular group
dates from 1000 b. c.

In another group there is one which somewhat
resembles our modern dolls, it being fairly well
shaped down to the knees. The arms are gro-

o t

ANTIQUITY OF THE DOLL

tesquely long like the elongated ones of Japanese
monkeys. The body is crudely carved of wood
to represent a Nubian woman, and the doll was
without doubt the beloved toy of an Egyptian
child a century or more before Christ was born.

Another group consists of a terra-cotta man
with a duck's head ; an oriental Queen gorgeously
dressed in a gilded crown only — the figure is made
of bronze and has jointed arms and legs. Another
figure in the group has a tiny babe in her arms.

In a museum in Berlin there is a wooden Egyp-
tian doll with movable joints which is probably of
the same period as the collection in the British Mu-
seum. There is also a fine collection of early
Egyptian dolls in the Louvre, Paris, and another
in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

According to Wilkinson, the children of the
ancient Egyptians amused themselves with painted
dolls whose hands and legs, moving on pins, were
made to assume various positions by means of
strings, like the modern puppets. Many of these
were very crudely formed, without legs or with
an imperfect representation of a single arm or leg
on one side. Some had strings of beads hanging
from the doubtful place of the head and others
wore curious imitations of wigs.

A few exhibited a nearer approach to the human
figure and some made with considerable attention

THE DOLL BOOK

to proportion were small models of the children
themselves. They were colored in the most absurd
manner; the more shapeless had usually the most
gaudy appearance as being thought most likely to
catch the eye of the infant. The show of reality
was deemed more suited to the taste of an older
child, and the nearer their resemblance to human
objects the less they partook of artificial ornament.

Sometimes the doll was only part of a toy; for
instance, a man washing clothes or kneading dough
would be represented by a doll, the necessary
movements indicative of his employment being
imitated by the pulling of strings. Groups of
soldiers were made to march in the same fashion.
A crocodile doll that opened and shut its mouth
with great realism was a favorite with most children
in those days.

In Notes and Queries of April 21, 1906, there was
the following query from an English gentleman :

"I have read somewhere, I cannot tell where,
that children of the Comoro Islands use headless
dolls, the reproduction of human features being
forbidden by Mohammedan religion. Can any
one kindly confirm or deny the above?"

In answer to the above nothing can be more
conclusive than the following notes by Gustave
Schlegel of the University of Leyden:

*' Among the ancient Egyptians we find children's

ANTIQUITY OF THE DOLL

games developed in exactly the same way as to-day
among our children. To them were known the
running games, ball tossing and the doll. We
have found wooden dolls that were not inferior to
ours, and which were certainly dressed by the
little Egyptian maid as to-day our girls dress
their little manikins.

*' There were also movable dolls, whose hands
and feet could be pulled with strings; others there
were made of painted wood which showed only
indicationally the human form and had strings of
pearls instead of hair.

'*The children of the old world were supplied
with dolls, although the plainer mode of dressing
at that time furnished the little ladies less occupa-
tion than do our fashionable dolls of to-day.
There are in the museums rude and rough dolls of
wood and clay beside finer ones of wax and ivory.

''In the Vatican Museum, among the Roman
remains found in the catacombs, are found ivory
dolls with movable limbs. When we see the dolls
thus spread everywhere amongst the children of past
ages, the conclusion may seem reasonable that the
dolls with which all children of cultivated European
nations play, may be considered a direct offering
from them.

"The doll is the first and most natural toy of the
child, the girls especially, who in impulse of imita-

THE DOLL BOOK

tion, playing mother, converts any handy, suitable
object to a doll. So effectual is this, the laws of
Islam suffer therefrom.

''The Koran forbids bodily representation, but
the Mohammedan child for that reason does not
lose its doll. Aischa, the prophet Mohammed's
nine-year-old wife, romped around with her doll in
his harem, and the holy man himself was accus-
tomed to play with them.

"A good authority on the Orient informs us that
the Mohammedan woman in Bagdad sees a specter
in every doll which might unexpectedly become
active and do harm to her children. Dolls are
therefore not given to the children as toys — ^but
the little girls obeying the voice of Nature, nurse
and play with pieces of wood and pillows instead
of with the manufactured toys."

It would be wearying should I here mass the
evidence and show how everywhere the doll is at
home; a few illustrations will suffice:

With the children of the Arctic races, the doll
plays an important part. It is present with all
Siberians as a little fur monstrosity, and Wirdenskiol
praises the good work of the dolls among the
Tscuktchen. The Alaskan dolls are similar and
made by women; the dress and exterior in imita-
tion of adults. This applies to Indians.

Adrien Jacobsen speaks of "numerous dolls

1. Congo iron dolls 2. Zuni Indian bead doll 3. Dolls from the
Madeira Islands 4. Eskimo dolls, carved from walrus tusks

ANTIQUITY OF THE DOLL

among the Eskimos, cut out of bones and mammoth
teeth and dressed in furs. All the Northern peo-
ple have dolls for their children as far as East
Greenland and there they are found in the graves
of extinct races.

*'As with us it happens that we lay into the
coffin the doll of a beloved child, so have Reiss and
Slubel designated as dolls small originally dressed
clay figures in old Peruvian graves. Dolls worked
out of clay are also found amongst the Sakalaven
of Madagascar."

Catlin tells us that *' Indian mothers fill the
cradle of the dead child with feathers arranged in
the form of the child, and carry this substitute
about with them; speak with it and treat it as a
child.

**The O jib ways on the northern sea call these
dolls Kitemagissiwin, which means unlucky doll,
because through them the dead one is represented.
Kohl says that the long fast-tied-together pack-
ages of the hair of the dead child contain its toys,
clothes and amulets. This doll everywhere takes
the place of the dead child; the sorrowing mother
carries it around with her for a year; sets it in the
wooden cradle at her side by the fire, and takes it
with her on long journeys.

*'The idea which is fixed in her mind is that
the deceased child is still too small to find its way

THE DOLL BOOK

to Paradise, but through the persistent carrying of
the substituted imitation the mother believes her-
self to help the soul along. Therefore she carries
it until she fancies the soul of the little loved one
has grown enough to find its own way.

*' In Africa we find a similar custom. The Fingo
doll plays in the Orange Free State an important
role with the natives. Every Fingo maid receives
upon maturity a doll which she retains until she
becomes a mother. Then her mother gives her a
new doll which she carefully conserves until she
has a second child, and so forth. These dolls are
held as sacred and the owner never voluntarily
parts with them. Casalis reports a similar custom
among the Basutos."

CHAPTER II

ETYMOLOGY OF THE DOLL

THE word doll was not found in common
use in our language until the middle of
the eighteenth century. Its first appear-
ance so far as I can discover, was accord-
ing to an English writer in the B. E. Dictionary, in
1700. Later it was found in the Gentleman's
Magazine for September, 1751, where it is recorded
that several dolls with different dresses, made in
St. James Street, have been sent to the Czarina to
show the manner of dressing at present in fashion
among English ladies.

M. d'Allemange, in his ''Historic des Jouets,"
tells us that long before Caesar astonished the
world with his victories, Roman children played
with dolls which had the jointed bodies and the
classic heads we are wont to see on the statues in
the museums and which look very queer to the
child of the twentieth century; but they only show
that then, as now, the doll was the expression of
the people.

THE DOLL BOOK

An ancient writer declares that doll is a corrup
tion of dole, Saxon dol — a share distributed — an
cites as evidence of the truth of his statement th
fact that a lady of Duxfurd left a sum of mone
to be given away annually in the parish — to b
called Doll-money; but the writer is mistaken; i
is dole-money.

An ecclesiastical writer says that the origin of th
doll and its name may be more than guessed a
from the sermons of Roger Edgeworth, one of th
first three prebendaries of the outrages of th
Reformation. He says that the images were take
from the churches and given to the children a
pretty idols or dolls, but this statement has bee
successfully controverted.

A writer in Notes and Queries says that nearly
thousand years ago the old name for maid-servar
was '*doul," which used also to mean "a doll,
"danice," "duckie," and he thinks doll may be
corruption of this word. Dryden translates 'pu'pa
in "Perseus" into baby-toys and in a note says ths
those baby-toys were little babies or ''puppets,
whence says Richardson, it seems that the nam
of doll was not in general use at that time. Ar
other writer in a vague way says: "Centuries ag
when saint's names were much in vogue for chij
dren, St. Dorothea was the most popular and he
name the best and luckiest that could be given t

ETYMOLOGY OF THE DOLL

a little girl. The nickname was Dolly or Doll,
and from giving babies the nickname, it was an
easy step to pass it on to the little images of which
they were so fond."

The following is the French version of the origin
of the word poupee, the common name for doll.
Pursello Grivaldi, a clever Italian, conceived the
idea, or perhaps carried out one he had received
from the Orient, of making wax figures and dress-
ing them in the costumes of emperors, empresses
and other famous folk.

He arranged sixty or seventy of these and carried
them to Paris, where he advertised them as a show
of puppets — or a puppet play. It was something
new and all Paris flocked to see the novelty.
Queen Isabella, consort of poor mad King Charles
VI., saw at once that the exhibition would please
her distraught husband, and bade the Italian
bring the puppets to Court where they became
very popular with the courtiers.

Curiously enough the King took a great fancy
to one representing Poppsea, the beautiful but
wicked consort of Nero, and he persisted in having
her erratic career and tragic death rehearsed to
him until he became familiar with it and insisted
upon keeping the wax Poppsea.

The fad for the figures waned when Charles
died, and the whole collection was turned over to

THE DOLL BOOK

the children, who have since had a monopoly <
them.

This writer claims that the French poupee srn
the German puppe are different forms of tl
word Poppaea, but he has hardly gone far enou^
back in his researches, for the Latin word for dc
is *^pupa, a girl, damsel, a puppet or baby"; as tl:
Latin dictionary puts it, "such as girls played wil
while little, and being grown gave to Venus."

A little observation will convince any one th;
dolls appeal to a very large portion of the gener
public; if not for themselves individually, for tl
children of their family or those of others. Dol
are universal gifts at Christmas and that sma
girl who does not receive one is poor indeed.

A few years ago there was published in the dai
papers an appeal to mothers to send "ten-inc
dolls to gladden the half -orphaned hearts" of tl
babies of New York asylums. The response wj
so generous that dolls came in a perfect avalanch
which one of the reporters acknowledged in tl
following verses:

"The charge then burst open the door;
And with mighty uproar,
Came flushing and pushing,
And rushing and crushing.
And courtesying and bending,
A train never ending.
Some ghding, some sliding,
Some hurrying, some scurrying,

ETYMOLOGY OF THE DOLL

Some dancing, some jumping,
Some thumping, some bumping;
Dolls from the south of us,
Dolls from the west of us,
Dolls from the east of us,
Swelling the throng."

"Some dolls could talk and some could walk.
While some were dressed as brides,.
With sable coats and Irish lace.
And diamond rings besides.
Some old-time plaster paris dolls.
And waxen dolls were there.
And china dolls like grandma used.
With painted china hair."

A well-known writer who regrets the passing of
the old-fashioned doll with the disappearance of
the old-fashioned child, gives vent to the following:

*'A modern little girl not only does not make her
doll's clothes, but she actually puts out her wash-
ing. She knows nothing of the delight of the doll's
laundry day, with the drying lines stretched across
the inside of the nursery fender, and the loan of
the iron with which nurse gets up her caps. The
modern little girl demands the services of a maid
for her doll. How different the old-fashioned
little girl. She slept with her doll. She shared
her meals with dolly; she sat on her doll in order
to keep her safe and have her handy, as Dickens
describes the selfish old man at the seaside reading-
room sitting on one popular newspaper while he
reads another.

THE DOLL BOOK

*'The old-fashioned little girl and her gutta-
percha doll were full of fun and — flexible, *b-r-r-r-
rumpety dumpety dump dump dump.'

"The doll of the modern little girl makes me
heartsick. She looks at you with such shy blue
eyes, eyes with sweeping lashes distractingly real,
and such genuine hair. It has Marcel waves.
And the face is so intellectual, so different from
the happy expression of the good old gutta-percha
doll. And yet dolls and soldiers and other things
about a room may bring very sad memories."

CHAPTER III

SOME HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

OLD dolls are among the things that are
taking on new values in this day and
generation. Battered and bruised al-
most beyond recognition, various dolls
that were once fondled affectionately, loved beyond
their deserts, have been brought from that limbo
to which are relegated forgotten and disused things
and restored to as much of their pristine beauty
as possible.

They are respected and revered for their great
age like women who have reached that period of
life when they prefer to add a few years to their
age rather than to subtract them as they did when
younger.

That queens were not above playing with dolls,
even when they were quite grown, we have abun-
dant evidence.

''Mary Stuart brought with her to Scotland from
Paris lovely French dolls, which she set apart for
ornament rather than use, but her chief delight
was in the dolls she and her Marys had made and

THE DOLL BOOK

dressed." The beautiful queen was devoted tc
her family of dolls, not only during her childhood
in France, but later, when she went, a young and
lovely widow, to Scotland. She is reported to have
spent much time with her dolls, perhaps to distract
her mind from the machinations of her nobles whc
wished to rule Scotland in her stead. When she
had leisure she would gather her Marys together
and set them to work with her making rag dolls,
and little beds and bedding fashioned like her own.
Queen Mary took upon herself the making of the
small sheets and bolster covers for the beds, and
while they sewed they would discourse lovingly oi
France and the pleasant life they had left behind
them.

Queen Elizabeth had a great passion for dolls in
her youth, and among the collection she left was a ver^;
curious specimen of the doll-maker's art, composed
entirely of the bark of trees, so artistically pieced
together that only a close inspection revealed the
fact that the whole was not carved out of one solid
piece of mahogany. This doll, which was reputed
to have been in existence more than two centuries
previous to coming into the young princess' nurs-
ery, was clothed in such a variety of beautiful gar-
ments that her juvenile highness always had the
assistance of a maid to dress and undress her
favorite plaything.

HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

Another strange doll with which the Queen's
childhood was associated was one from Spain. It
was almost life-size, and dressed in clothes said to
have been made by the highest ladies of the land,
although, as the author of "Things Quaint and
Curious" remarks, '*the stitching of the various
garments was not above reproach, a blemish, how-
ever, which was fully recompensed by the magnifi-
cence of the cloth used."

A wonderland doll was possessed by the Duchess
of Kinloch, who lived prior to the Reformation.
It was made of the wood of the fir tree, and so
ingeniously constructed that by the mere pressing
of either of its eyes it would open its mouth, yawn,
laugh, and make an expression as if in pain. Not
only would it do all this, but it could be made to
move its legs, as if walking at a rapid rate. The
hair used was human, and once adorned the head
of a wealthy and titled lady, who lost her life for
the sake of her religion.

French as well as English queens were fond of
dolls, even after they had grown up. In the year
1493, Anna of Brittany sent to Queen Isabella of
Castile, who was forty-three years old, a large
poupee, probably for the purpose of showing her
the fine fashions that were in vogue at the Court
of France.

The record of some extremely costly dolls that

THE DOLL BOOK

were manufactured in the seventeenth century has
come down to us intact. Louis d'Epernon, who
gave up a bishopric in order to become a soldier,
spent several hundred dollars on a doll for little
Mile, de Bourbon, who later acquired distinction
as the Duchesse de Longueville. We have a full
description of this costly doll, and it is gratifying
to learn that the kind-hearted giver obtained for his
money, in addition to the doll, a complete sleeping
apartment for the little lady, in which were a bed,
furniture, several handsome gowns and all neces-
sary underwear. One wonders whether the Duch-
ess of Orleans fared as well as this when in 1722,
she gave several thousand dollars for a superb
doll, which she presented to the little Queen.

In the art of manufacturing and dressing dolls,
the French excelled at that time, and more than
one chronicler assures us that they were accus-
tomed to send several of their handsomest and best
dressed dolls to foreign countries in order that the
people there might clearly see the superiority of
French fashions.

According to the newspapers, the oldest doll in
America lives in Montgomery County, Maryland.

She was brought to this country by William
Penn, in 1699. His daughter, Letitia, selected the
doll as a gift for a little Miss Rankin of Philadel-
phia. The children of the Quakers of those days

HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

took good care of their playthings, and although
the doll was the cherished companion of several
generations of little Quakeresses, she is still in
good condition, wearing the grand court dress in
which she came to this country.

Polly Sumner is another doll to be admired and
respected for her great age; she was born in Eng-
land and came to this country in 1773, and has
nearly a century and a quarter to her credit. She
was placed for sale in a Boston shop and was
bought by pretty Polly Sumner who was then a
bride. She was splendidly arrayed in an English
court dress of the period, and wore a gown of rich
brocade over a large hoop, had pearl beads around
her neck and on her head was set a jaunty cap
with curling ostrich feathers. She is made of good
English oak, is still sound in every joint and likely
to last for a long time.

After having been lost to sight for a generation
or two, she was brought out and dressed in Quaker
garb, and later found a place in the old Church
Museum. She is now owned by Mrs. Mary
Langley, who prizes her very highly.

Another old doll is the property of Mrs. Otis H.
Brown of 86 Oak Street, South Weymouth, Mass.
She bears the name of Mehitable Hodges, and is
known to be 184 years old. She was brought
from France to Salem in 1724, by Captain Gamaliel

THE DOLL BOOK

Hodges, for his little daughter. Mrs. Brown is a
descendant of Captain Hodges and inherited the
doll.

The doll is arrayed in her original costume of
pink silk, fashioned after the style of Louis XIV.,
and is perfect in every detail, the silk even retaining
its color after a lapse of nearly two centuries.

Mehitable Hodges has traveled a good deal and
has been on exhibition and taken first prize at doll
shows, besides many church fairs and charity
exhibits in New England. This doll was exhibited
to the public for the last time at a recent doll show
in South Weymouth, and is now safely cased and
blanketed and shown only to visitors at the home
of Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

During the war between the North and South,
in the United States, many a precious article was
conveyed through the lines inside a doll's body.
Not even the soldier on guard had the heart to
deprive a child of its most valued and apparently
harmless toy, by confiscating a doll, but presently
the trick was discovered and no more dolls were
allowed to pass through the lines. Quinine, mor-
phine and other drugs as well as war dispatches
were conveyed in this manner and the families to
whom these dolls were sent treasured them beyond
belief. A Mississippi family has a small colony
of dolls which brought cotton seed from Mexico

HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

at that time, and the whole Natchez district is still
growing cotton from that seed.

Another doll not so old but one that has historic
interest, is owned by Mrs. William Wallace of
Morristown, N. J. It was once the property of
Hannah Marcelles, to whom General Lafayette
gave it in exchange for a kiss. It is a flat-faced
little baby with abnormally red cheeks and a sharp
nose. It wears a silk gown and a Napoleon hat;
across its breast are the figures 1797.

A doll that has a very short, though interesting
history, is one owned by the young daughter of
Frederick Eles of Lansdale, Pa. Its curly locks
once grew on the head of the child's own father.
The hair was made into a beautiful wig which can
be put on and off, and is the envy of the girls in
the vicinity of her home.

A colored doll, one with an interesting history,
is owned by the Lincoln family of Massachusetts.
Her name is Georgia and she has more than a
hundred years to her credit. She is beaten and
battered almost beyond recognition, but after all
has stood the stress of generations remarkably
well.

She had been packed away as a valuable heir-
loom for forty years, when about three years ago
she was once more brought to the front and estab-
lished as one of the large family of dolls belonging

THE DOLL BOOK

to the present generation. She takes the place of
honor as her right and is really respected and
revered by the twentieth century little ones who
call her dear great grandmamma.

Mrs. Carlyle's doll with its pathetic ending is
historic surely. She tells us that when she was a
young girl, she had a beautiful doll and was very
fond of it and played with it until the governess
came and made her study Latin. Then she began
to think she was too much of a young lady to play
with dolls, and so she decided she would have her
doll die as Dido did on a funeral pyre. She set the
little four-post bedstead in the garden and with
lead pencils, sticks of cinnamon and a nutmeg
built the pyre. After having put the doll on the
bed she emptied a whole bottle of perfume over
her and set fire to her. When she saw the poor
dolly burning she was sorry and screamed and
tried to save her, but she was too late, her dolly
burned and she never had any other doll.

Of course the collections of Queens Victoria and
Wilhelmina are historic, but as they are described
in another chapter, they need only be referred to
here.

In the Journal of Jean Hersard, mention is made
of several beautiful dolls in a coach offered by
Sully to Louis XIII. when he was a child. Louis
XIV. played with dolls as well as soldiers.

HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

Cardinal Richelieu gave to Madame d'Enghein
a miniature room with six doll people in it. Miles,
de Ramnonillel and de Banlenlle played with
them, dressing and undressing them, feeding and
physicking them to their heart's content. The
room was a Louis XIII. interior; the costumes,
head-dresses, nurse's uniform, osier cradle, were
identical to the period.

The three dolls sent by Felix Faure to the three
little grand duchesses of Russia not long ago,
will in time become objects of great historic in-
terest. One has a phonograph inside her so ar-
ranged as to say: **Good morning, dear mamma,
did you sleep well.?" This must have been of
wonderful interest even to a mite of a grand
duchess.

Another had four costumes representing Nor-
mandy, Arlesienne, Bearnaise and Breton peasants.

The third was that of a debutante dressed for
her first soiree; a second costume reproduced the
exact dress worn by a young lady at the Trianon
Fete last year; the third was a most fetching cos-
tume for a yachtswoman. All were as dainty and
expensive as real lace and jewels could make them.
The cost of fashioning and dressing one of these
little ladies was between six and seven hundred
dollars, each head-dress alone costing fifty dollars.

These fortunate dolls took with them twenty

THE DOLL BOOK

trunks filled with Paris clothes. So important was
the gift, a titled secretary of embassy was dele-
gated to travel with the dolls and look after their
belongings.

History tells us that when Maximilian made his
entry into Augsberg in the year 1504, the little
four-year-old daughter of the Syndic Peutinger
addressed the Emperor in Latin verse. Maxi-
milian was so surprised and pleased with the
infant prodigy that he told her he would give her
whatever she would like most to have. The
Emperor undoubtedly imagined she would ask
for a new book or a jewel, perhaps. His surprise
must have been great when the child blushed and
said she would like to have a doll. It is needless
to say that she was the recipient of the finest and
most costly one that Maximilian could buy.

In "Child Life in Colonial Days," Alice Morse
Earle writes of various sorts of dolls that gladdened
the hearts of Colonial children. She says: "The
best dolls in England were originally sold at
Bartholomew Fair and were known as 'Bartholo-
mew Babies.'"

In "Poor Robin's Almanack," 1695, is a refer-
ence to a Bartholomew baby tricked up with ribbons
and knots ; and they were known at the time of the
landing of the Pilgrims. Therefore it is not im-
possible that some Winthrop or Winslow maid,

• J» » *,

Dolls in Deerfield Memorial Hall. The child has gone, but her
doll's "remnants" remain

HISTORIC DOLLS AND OTHERS

some little miss of Bradford or Brewster birth,
brought across seas a Bartholomew baby and was
eqmforted by it.

In the collection at Deerfield Memorial Hall is
a doll so beaten and battered that it has little
resemblance to either ancient or modern dolls. It
is named Bangwell Putt and for nearly a century
was the beloved companion of a blind girl, Clarissa
Field, who lived in Northfield, Mass. At her
death, some curious, crude attempts at versifica-
tion were found pinned to the doll's clothing,
which lent an unusual interest to the shapeless
little creature. From the legend attached to the
doll, it seems to have been as cherished a companion
of the blind woman in her old age as in her youth.

The descendants of John Quincy Adams treas-
ure a shapely rag doll who spent the days of her
youth with the children of the President in the
White House at Washington.

A lady in New York owns a doll of great historic
interest; a small, wooden-jointed doll that was
bought by one of her ancestors from Hepzibah
Pincheon when she opened her penny-shop in the
House of Seven Gables in Salem. '* Wooden
Milkmaids," Hawthorne called these dolls.

A doll owned and loved by that beautiful daugh-
ter of the Confederacy, Winnie Davis, has a place of
honor in the Confederate Museum, Richmond, Va.

THE DOLL BOOK

A few years ago there was still in the Falconiere
Palace in Rome some dolls that had once belonged
to Elisa Bonaparte. Letitia Bonaparte, mother
of the great Napoleon, lived in this palace for
many years. After her death, there was found
an old wardrobe where she had kept the toys that
had amused her children in Corsica. Among
them were several dolls that had cheered the heart
of Elisa, and Joseph, too, for it is somewhere
recorded that Joseph used to take Madame Mere's
old silk dresses to make beds for his sister's dolls.

A celebrated historic doll is one representing the
Duke de Berry, who was assassinated by Laurel.
The wig is made from the Duke's own hair; the
legend attached to it declares that the doll was once
the cherished possession of the Comte de Cham-
bord.

CHAPTER IV

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

A NCIENT Greece, Rome and Egypt knew
/\ the puppet-play with small images or
Jl m puppets representing the dramatis per-
sonoe. Herodotus mentions them and
later writers frequently speak of them, but accord-
ing to Richard Pischel, it is to India, that old won-
derland from which we have received so many
blessings, that we must go to find the home of the
puppet-play and perhaps the origin of the first doll.
In an admirable address delivered by him on
assuming the oflfice of rector of the Konigliche
Vereinigte Friedrichs University, Halle Witten-
berg said: "The birthplace of fairy tales has long
been recognized to be India. They wandered
from India to Persia, and thence the Arabs brought
them to Europe. But the origin of puppet-plays
still remains quite obscure. The problem is also
more diflficult to solve because the sources flow but
feebly. The art of the puppet-player has always
been more or less of a mystery, receiving no sub-
stantial encouragement from the cultured class.

THE DOLL BOOK

"Xenophon in his *Symposion' makes the
puppet-player from Syracuse assert that he
esteems fools above other men, they being the
spectators of his puppet plays and consequently
the means of his livelihood.

*'This is hardly borne out by facts; the puppet-
player, Prothernos, was so much sought after in
Athens that the Archons gave up to him the very
stage on which the dramas of Euripides had excited
the enthusiasm of the populace. France in the
time of Moliere and Beaumarchais, England under
Shakespeare and Sheridan, Germany in the days
of Goethe and Schiller had numerously attended
marionette shows, which at times proved formid-
able rivals to theatrical companies.

*'For the most part the puppet-play has been the
favorite child of the mass of the people and only
the step-child of the cultured classes because it
appeals most strongly to the people to whom it
owes its origin.

**The words for puppet in Sanskrit are putrika,
duhitrka, puttati, pullaliha, all of which mean
little daughter. In ancient India puppets were
made out of wool, wood, buffalo horn, and ivory,
and these playthings were quite as popular long
ago with the girls of that country as they are with
our girls of the present day.

"A broken doll was then the cause of as many

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

tears as would be shed nowadays; indeed, it was
proverbially said of any one who had caused his
own misfortune and then lamented over it that he
was 'crying after breaking his own doll.'

**In India even grown-up people enjoyed playing
with puppets. Vatsya-yana, in his 'Treatise on
Love' advises not only boys but also young men
to join the girls and young women in their games
with puppets as means of gaining their affections.

"In the Mahabharata, Princess Uttara and her
friends entreat Arjuna to bring back with him
from his campaign fine, gaily colored, delicate and
soft garments for their dolls.

'*A legend runs that Parrati, wife of Siva, made
herself such a beautiful doll that she thought it nec-
essary to conceal it from the eyes of her husband.
She carried it far away to the Malaya mountain,
but visited it every day that she might adorn it.

**Siva, rendered suspicious by her long absence,
stole after her, saw the doll, fell in love with it and
gave it life.

'* There is also an early mention made of puppets
worked by machinery. We read that Somaprabha,
the daughter of a celebrated mechanician, brought
as a present to her friend, Princess Kalingasena, a
basket of mechanical wooden puppets, constructed
by her father.

'* There was a wooden peg in each of the puppets

THE DOLL BOOK

and when this was touched one of them flew
through the air, fetched a wreath, and returned
when ordered; another when desired, brought
water in the same way; a third danced and a fourth
carried on conversation.

'*Somadera was not born until the eleventh cen-
tury of our era, but his work is an adaptation of
the oldest collection of fairy tales, the Brhatkatha
of Gunadhya.

"Talking dolls must not, however, be considered
a mere invention of story-tellers. Among the
social amusements mentioned in the 'Treatise on
Love,' there is mention made of a game called the
mimicry of puppets. Mithila, the capital of Videka
in eastern India, is mentioned as the place where
this amusement is most in vogue. Talking pup-
pets worked by internal mechanism, manipulated
by a puppet-player, were introduced on the stage.
Talking starlings were often introduced into the
mouths of the puppets.

"Present day puppets are moved by means of
a thread, as were those of ancient times.

"The teaching of parrots and starlings to speak
belonged to the sixty-four arts necessary to the
education of a girl in India. Some starlings imi-
tated the human voice so perfectly that puppets
were frequently mistaken for living beings."

From India the puppet-play with all its glitter

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

and mystery traveled to the Island of Java, became
extraordinarily popular and continues its hold upon
the people as their most fascinating amusement to
the present day.

The players are operated like the ordinary pup-
pets of our Punch and Judy shows, and usually
out of doors. The showman stands behind a fence
with the audience in front. The sexes are sepa-
rated, the men being comfortably in the front rows,
while the women are relegated to the rear seats or
to standing room only if there is not seating accom-
modations for all.

The Javanese marionettes are quite different
from any others, being flat, cut out of wood and
leather, and elaborately painted and gilded to
represent costly costumes. They are always ex-
tremely grotesque, with huge noses or humped
backs, and their arms are moved by means of long,
slender sticks suitably attached for the purpose.

The marionette showman in Java carries his
odd-looking dolls around with him in his chest,
and being always accompanied by two or three
musicians for an orchestra, he is able at any time
to set up his little theater at a moment's notice.

Unlike a Punch and Judy show, the play is not
comic but highly serious. The performance, in-
deed, is invariably a religious drama and the actors
of wood and leather represent divinities.

THE DOLL BOOK

There are fine collections of Javanese marion-
ettes in several of our museums. They are con-
structed of wood and leather and they were used
to represent the characters of an Oriental Passion
play. They are for the most part hideous in shape
and gaudily painted.

M. Olliver Beauregard says that there are two
chief theatrical dolls in Java, a Toping mute mask,
and Wayang spectacle in shadow. In the latter
a sort of bard rhapsodist operates the dolls and
tells them their roles of love and war to a musical
accompaniment.

The dolls represent historical and mythological
personages, and this is the best means of teaching
history and enforcing its morals early. The spec-
tators are often so interested that they watch them
play all night. These Javan marionettes are of
three kinds. Number one, very ancient gods and
heroes. Number two, celebrants of special festi-
vals. Number three, common dramatic figures.
This is the most important of the native amuse-
ments, coming at the time of the New Year's Feast.

*' Sometimes the Javanese puppets are hump-
backed," says another authority, ** sometimes great
of paunch; their skinny arms are as long as their
entire bodies and at all times they bear little
resemblance to a human figure.

*' These bizarre characteristics are really of

■ffPTmr-b:

s S

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

advantage, for the forms are all conventional, and
the respective characters are readily recognized
by the spectators. Two feet is the usual stature
of these manikins. They are made of thick
buffalo hide, richly gilded and ornamented with
Oriental profusion of color."

In the eighteenth century we read that *'Hor-
ton's show presented 5,000 of these puppets at
work at various trades in the streets of London.
At country fairs in Europe puppets were used to
explain historic incidents to the people; these were
all moved by clock work."

Gypsies in all lands have always had a fondness
for the puppet-play which was easily carried about
and could be shown anywhere without accessories.
The Persian gypsies undoubtedly carried the pup-
pets to Turkey where the shadow-play is to-day
extremely popular.

The name Marionette is a modern one. It was
said to have been given to these puppets by a man
named Marion who divorced them from the
Church plays and used them for small comedy
plays, exhibiting them in Paris.

Paris has always been fond of these puppets and
there are to-day several theaters where only mani-
kin plays are produced.

The dolls have heads of papier mache, bodies of
wood, and legs loaded with lead so that they stand

THE DOLL BOOK

upright without assistance; they are usually about
three feet high and their jointed members are
worked with strings.

French marionettes are most artistically made,
so as to resemble human beings as closely as pos-
sible, and those representing women are frequently
attired in very fashionable and expensive costumes.
It is the same with the Italian marionettes, which
are famous for their dancing, imitating as they do
the most elaborate and difficult movements of the
ballet.

Figures of wood and ivory dressed in fine stuffs
were used to ornament the funeral of Hiphestion
of Babylon, and they were also used at the time of
Phillip of Macedonia.

Punch and Judy shows in China have a legen-
dary origin. According to N. B. Dennys in "The
Folk Lore of China," we find that they are said
to date back to nearly 300 b. c, when a general
named Mao-tun was besieging the city of Pingin
Shensi. The general had a jealous wife who kept
the green-eyed monster with her all the time.

Cham-ping, the defender of the beleaguered city,
knew the weakness of his enemy's wife and through
it worked her ruin and at the same time brought
into existence the first Punch and Judy show.

To arouse her jealousy, he invented a puppet,
in the shape of a wooden woman, which was made

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

by strings and springs to dance on the battle-
ments of the beleaguered town. As he thought
she would, the lady became alarmed at the idea
of so fascinating a creature falling into her hus-
band's hands and becoming an addition to his
seraglio, and she managed to have the siege
raised.

In memory of this, similar, but smaller puppets
were constructed whose antics have, for more than
two thousand years, amused the Chinese people.

The principal puppet used to be known as
Kwoh, the bald, in memory, as it is averred, of a
man of that name who, having lost his hair in
sickness, began to jump and dance on his re-
covery.

Ombres Chinoises, as the French call them, are
shadows of pictures projected upon white sheets
or gauze screens painted as transparencies by
means of dolls. The cardboard flat figures are
held behind the screen, illuminated from behind.
The performer supports each figure by a long wire
held in one hand, while wires from all the movable
parts terminate in rings in which are inserted the
fingers of the other hand.

In the Chinese department at the Museum of
Natural History in New York, there is a fine collec-
tion of these shadow pictures. They are covered
with donkey skin and in some cases decorated with

THE DOLL BOOK

feathers. They are semi-transparent and mounted
on painted rods and represent- fish, flesh and
fowl.

The men are arrayed in elaborate costumes
correct in every detail as to character. All the
birds, beasts and fish are wonderfully cut out,
each one being mounted on the back of a man.
They are marvelously clever and ingenious.

Street scenes, occupations, decapitations and all
other modes of punishment and death that are in
vogue in the Dragon Empire are set forth by these
tiny creatures, seven or eight inches high. The
figures are fine specimens of art in themselves
without regard to their use. When properly
worked the shadows move with great precision,
while the operator retails the story or explains the
panorama of daily life that his figures portray.

In the collection of Chinese marionettes at the
same Museum there are two or three heads of
European dolls that look funny enough rising up
out of the wealth of Chinese garments.

The bodies of the dolls in this collection are
made of bamboo, are upright, eight or ten inches
long, with a head attached and two shorter pieces
for the arms, by means of which they are worked.
Many of the heads are masks, grotesque and weird
in the extreme ; others have heads of papier Toache
like dolls.

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

Each one is dressed in costume according to the
character it represents. They are used in pre-
senting pantomime plays taken from books or old
manuscripts. The characters are moved about
while some one reads the lines belonging to them.

Francis J. Ziegler in Harper's Magazine writes
of Italian puppets or Fantoccini as follows: "The
Fantoccini have capered on the miniature stage
for centuries without losing one iota of popularity.
They amused the fashionable under the reigns of
the Csesars, and they still draw appreciative specta-
tors in all Italian cities, these little figures of wood
and cloth, with their painted faces set in ever-
lasting smiles, their wide-staring eyes and wabbling
anatomies.

'*The Italians take them seriously enough. To
them the Fantoccini are real personages, whose
jerky motions are not ridiculous, but quite in keep-
ing with the grave and grandiose roles which are
found in the puppet repertoire. . . .

"The wires which move the puppets are plainly
in evidence, and each Fantoccini, when in motion,
appears to be suffering from a severe attack of
St. Vitus' Dance; but these peculiarities are
naught to the spectators who bring to the puppet
drama an appreciation often lacking at more
pretentious performances."

"In Germany puppet shows have existed since

THE DOLL BOOK

the twelfth century. Originally religious in char-
acter, they afterward became fantastic produc-
tions, in which mechanical appliances caused
grewsome transformations.

"In a puppet show representing *The Prodigal
Son,' for example, racks would be rent to disclose
corpses hanging on the gallows; bread would turn
to a skull in the prodigal's hands; water would be
transformed to blood and similar horrors would be
frequent throughout the drama.

** During the seventeenth century German theat-
rical performers came under the ban of the Church,
which denounced them as vagabonds and law-
breakers; as a consequence marionettes usurped
their place on the histrionic boards and enjoyed
great popularity in both high and low circles.

*'Puncinella came to London in 1666, when an
Italian puppet player set up his booth at Charing
Cross, and paid a small rental to the overseers of
St. Martin's parish. His name was at once Eng-
lished into Punchinello which became completely
Anglicized as Punch.

*' Robert Powel appeared as a puppet manager
in 1703, exhibiting his show not only in London,
but in Bath and Oxford as well. In these plays
Punch acted the buffoon amid a strange gather-
ing of characters, which included King Solomon,
Doctor Faustus, the Duke of Lorraine, St. George

PUPPETS AND MARIONETTES

and other personages from profane and religious
history.

"It was Punch who seated himself unceremoni-
ously in the Queen of Sheba's lap, and Punch again
who danced in the Ark and hailed Noah with 'a
hazy weather, Mr. Noah,' when the patriarch was
intent on navigating the flood."

Puppets have never won much recognition in
this country. Punch and Judy occasionally excites
the merriment of the younger folk at a church fair
or similar entertainment, and twenty years ago a
troupe of realistic marionettes, as large as children
acted in pantomime on the regular boards. But
we are too busy a people to squander time on the
puppet show and too practical a people to see
anything heroic in the Fantoccini.

One puppet play in India was called "The Man
With Two Wives." Both figures were women;
the husband apparently being cognizant of the
fact that discretion is the better part of valor,
wisely remained away and let the two carry out the
play or fight by themselves.

After the Scottish Lords and other leaders of
the Stuart uprising of 1745 were executed on Tower
Hill, the beheading of puppets made one of the
exhibitions at May Fair and was a feature of the
gathering for many years after.

"Readers of Cervantes' immortal work will re-

THE DOLL BOOK

member the zest with which the puppet show is
described, and the reaUty with which Don Quixote
invests the performance, and students of early
EngHsh dramatic Uterature will be equally fami-
liar with the amusing close of Ben Jonson's play,
Bartholomew Fair, which takes place at the per-
formance of a drama on the adventures of Hero
and Leander, acted by puppets in one of the
booths."

CHAPTER V

FASHION DOLLS

WHEN or why the ecclesiastical puppet
and the companion of the dead be-
came the medium of shadowing forth
the coming fashions and of carrying
them from one country to another is not clearly
shown, but that they did become so corrupted is
proved by the fact that wooden or waxen figures
were used in Venice for this purpose in the early
part of the fourteenth century. They were shown
at the annual Fair on Assumption Day dressed in
the mode that was to prevail during the coming
year.

It is claimed by a French writer that the custom
of dressing dolls or figures to show the fashions
originated in the Hotel Rambouillet where a figure
called la grande Pandora was exhibited in full
dress at each change of fashion. There was also
a smaller one called la petite Pandora which was
garbed in the politest of undress. In spite of this
assertion it is very probable that the custom in

THE DOLL BOOK

part or in its entirety was borrowed from Venice
at the time when the Queen of the Adriatic ruled
the fashionable as well as the ecclesiastical world.

It is asserted that in the list of royal expenditures
for the year 1391 in France, there is recorded a
certain number of lires for a doll sent to the Queen
of England. An hundred years later one was sent
to the Queen of Spain and at the close of another
century a very expensive doll was sent to the
Duchess of Bavaria.

We further read that Henry IV. of France wrote
to Marie de Medicis, in the year 1600, as follows:
"Frontenac tells me that you desire patterns of our
fashions in dress. I send you therefore some model
dolls."

These puppets were used by hairdressers as
well as by milliners and dressmakers. In 1727 a
French doll was sent around among the ladies of
the bed-chamber attached to Queen Caroline's
court. It was a little young lady dressed in court
costume, and it was shown with the reservation
that when all had studied it to their satisfaction it
was to be given to Mrs. Tempest, the court mil-
liner, to keep for a model in the future. In the
eighteenth century most continental countries re-
ceived their fashions from Paris. Deisbeck, writ-
ing from Vienna in 1788, says: "The people of
this city generally follow the French fashions,

Is
51

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I i!

il
l|

FASHION DOLLS

dolls being brought from Paris so that the ladies
may get their dressmakers to copy costumes."

Mrs. Bury Pallisser tells us that, in 1764, numbers
of dolls had been made in France in the shape and
size of full-grown human beings and were landed
at Dover, dressed in richest laces, thus enabling
English women to get the latest fashions and to
import expensive Flanders lace without duty, under
the very noses of the inspectors.

When English ports were closed in war times,
they were obligingly open to an alabaster doll four
feet high, called ''le grand Courrier, de la Mode,^'
In the war of the first Empire this privilege was
withdrawn, and from that time, Mrs. Pallisser con-
tinues, ''English women began to dress badly and
the cause of it rests upon the shoulders of Pitt."

That America did not fail to receive her quota
of French and English fashions in the same manner
is shown by the following advertisement which
appeared in the New England Weekly Journal, in
1733:

"To be seen at Mrs. Hannah Teatts, mantua-
maker, at the head of Summer St., Boston, a baby
dressed after the newest fashions of mantuas and
nightgowns and everything belonging to a dress,
lately arrived on the Captain White from London."

There are other and amusing advertisements of
''fashion babies" to be found in the early American

THE DOLL BOOK

newspapers. Ladies going abroad were earnestly
petitioned to send back the fashion dolls that those
who remained at home might not be too far behind
the mode.

Even the staid Quakers did not disdain their use,
for it was their desire to fold their kerchief and
regulate the width of their hat brims after the
fashion set by their English brothers and sisters.
Some of these old dolls are now treasured in Quaker
families that have long ago discarded the plain
dress, though they retain the plain speech in the
intimacy of their family lives.

According to Alice Morse Earle, these dolls
were called ''little ladies" and *'babies," until the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the word
doll came into use in the New World. Fashions
changed and the methods of importing them also;
thus the little wooden figures would have fallen into
ignominious graves had the children not rescued
them and set them up as queens of the play-room.

In the time of Louis VI., fashion dolls were very
much in evidence on the Continent. The original
was life-size, dressed in the latest style of Versailles
or the Palais-Royal and called La Poupee de la
Rue Saint Honore,^

Replicas of this were sent to England, Germany,
Italy and Spain, and set out before the eyes of the

* Katherine de Forest in " Paris as It Is."

FASHION DOLLS

courts, very much as the Buddhists and Brahmins
set up their goddesses. The French archives tell
us that Catherine de Medici had sixteen of these
dolls, and that she dressed them in mourning after
the death of her husband, to correspond with her
black-hung walls.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the
fashion journals spoke of these dolls as follows:
*' Dolls are always imperfect and very dear; while
at best they can give but a vague idea of the
fashions." Some of these old figures are to be
found in the Muse Carnavalet.

Fashion dolls are used to-day for purposes of
demonstration; they have an atmospheric value
and are modern; of cheap German manufacture
and their only function is that of a dummy for the
exhibition of foreign costumes.

They are clad in the native Breton, Swiss, Nor-
man, Dutch or other peasant costumes and are
sent to watering-places throughout Europe and to
the trade in America. These dolls seldom please
a child, unless she is old enough to understand
what foreign costumes mean, and then often a rag
doll of home manufacture is preferred.

French has been the court language for centuries;
French costumes have been worn by the better
classes, more or less, all over the world, so that it
is to the poor people that one must look for native

THE DOLL BOOK

dress. The peasants of Normandy and Brittany
are perhaps the most picturesque people of Europe,
with the possible exception of the ItaHan contadina.

The headdress and bodice are the distinguishing
marks all over the Continent. Some of the bodices
are preserved through generations of daughters
with all the respect due to a sacerdotal vestment.
The peasants of Normandy wear caps of muslin
and lace, made stiff with starch, that rise a foot or
more above the head, and make the little women
look almost like dwarfs. The bridal cap of these
women is an enlarged edition of the common one
that almost envelops the wearer.

The matter of universal fashion is something to
make the artistic as well as the judicious grieve;
for what shall differentiate us, when all the world
wears clothes from the same fashion emporium and
speaks the same language. The quaint head-
dresses and caps, the velvet bodices and chains and
the wooden shoes, the baggy trousers and the bright
coloring of the peasants' costumes are fast disap-
pearing before the civilizing effects of steam and
electricity. Old fashion plates and a few figures
garbed in the native costume are all that is left
of a past not far behind us. They are features of
amazing interest even though they show but the
mutability of fashion and are a commentary on the
past generations.

CHAPTER VI

ORIENTAL DOLLS

THE most fascinating doll in all the Orient
is the loaded doll made of papier mache,
weighted with clay at the bottom so
that however tilted or tipped up it will
right itself.

In his delightful book on Korean games, Mr.
Stewart Culin says of these dolls: *'The commonest
and most popular toy of all is the Ot-tok-i, *erect
standing one.' This is an image made of paper,
with rounded bottom filled with clay, so that it
always stands erect. The figure represents a
woman who sometimes rides upon a tiger.

"The eighth day of the fourth month is the day
celebrated in Japan as the birthday of Buddha,
called the Kwam butsuye. It would appear from
this that the Korean festival was originally Bud-
dhistic and probably that the Ot-tok-i were once
images of Buddha. They may, however, have
had a still greater antiquity and been associated
with some earlier religious celebration, possibly
connected with the vernal equinox. The toy called

THE DOLL BOOK

the Ot-tok-i, which has many counterparts through-
out the world, may be regarded as a possible sur-
vival of the image of a deity which was anciently
worshiped in Korea at this season.

"In Japan the 'tilting toy,' for so this image
may be conveniently styled, is made to represent
the idol Daruma, and receives the name of that per-
sonage. It is also called oki agari hohoshi, ' rising
up little priest.' In purchasing these toys the chil-
dren are careful to buy those that are weighted so
as to rise up quickly. Imperfect ones are regarded
as unlucky.

"The Wa Kan san sai dzue has a picture of a
toy representing a Buddhist priest, which is in-
clined as if to represent a tilting toy, which may
be due to an attempt of the artist to show the toy
as lying down. This, with a picture of a toy dog,
is described under the heading Tsuchi ning yo, or
*clay images with the Chinese equivalent of nat
so yan, literally clay modeled men,' and to Yan
Ying (another name), 'clay images.' It relates to
the Shing fu ron (Chinese Ts'ien fu lun), and
says: *The people of the present day make clay
carts and pottery dogs. These it says are the
clay images of the present day, made by putting clay
in molds of human shape, dogs, lions and mon-
keys, which are used as children's playthings.'

"The name tsuchi ning yo is applied in Japan

ORIENTAL DOLLS

to the clay images of men and horses which were
anciently buried with the dead to take the place
of living sacrifices, and which are now excavated
from ancient sepulchers.

"The foregoing would seem to indicate a cere-
monial use of the tilting toy in ancient Japan,
especially if it should appear that the tsuchi ning
yo were actually made in this form. However,
the sacrificial images from the ancient graves, as
shown by original paintings in the Museum of the
University of Pennsylvania, do not appear to have
a rounded base, and the associations of the toy in
Japan are entirely Buddhistic.

*'The Bijutsu Sekai or * World of Fine Arts,'
May, 1891, gives a picture of what appears to be a
tilting toy, with the English title of * ancient doll.'
The Japanese text states that it is by Kozi Shoseki
and represents an ancient earthen idol, dogu, the
original supposed to be made by Tosaku Kurat
sukur, Busshi (maker of Buddhistic idols).

"In Southern China, Canton, the tilting toy is
called ta pat to, * struck not fall.' It is made of
stiff paper, not cardboard, painted red to represent
an old man holding a fan. In India, as shown by
a specimen sent to the Columbian Museum, Chi-
cago, from the provincial museum, Lucknow,
this toy is made of paper and designated as posti,
or 'one addicted to opium.'

THE DOLL BOOK

"In France this toy is made to represent a
Chinese mandarin, and is called Le noussah. This
name is borrowed from the Chinese, being the
words p'o' sat, a term applied in China to Budd-
histic idols. It is the Chinese form of the Sanskrit
Bodhisattva.

"In Madrid, Spain, this is sold w^ith other chil-
dren's toys at the annual fair in the autumn. Two
purchased by the writer in 1892 represent a monk
and a nun.

"In Germany the tilting toy is a common play-
thing, and is largely manufactured with other
toys for export. It is made in the form of a
grotesque human figure, and called Putzelmann
(South Germany) or Butzenmann (North and
Central Germany), a name which has been re-
garded as meaning the same as the English bogy
man.

"A more direct etymology has been found in the
German purzel, 'somersault.' It is not improb-
able, however, that the form hutzen is, as so often
happens, a species of popular etymology to connect
an originally foreign word in sound. In view of
the diflficulty encountered by the Germanic scholars
in satisfactorily accounting for the name of the
toy, the question suggests itself, whether it is not
an altered and corrupt form of Buddha, as is
directly apparent in the French name.

ORIENTAL DOLLS

"In Sweden this toy is called Trollgubbe or *old
goblin.'

"Tilting toys of a variety of forms are sold in the
United States. They are chiefly of foreign manu-
facture and are known by various names. In
Maryland they were formerly called * Bouncing
Betty' and in Philadelphia thirty years ago,
* Bouncing Billy.' A miniature tilting toy was
common in the United States about the same time,
and locally known as 'tilt up.'

"Objects of stone and pottery, simulating a
human figure and having a rounded base like the
Ot-tok-i, are found widely distributed among the
Indian tribes of the United States. They were
used in ceremonials and as objects connected with
worship. A striking example of such an image is
represented upon a vase of pottery from an Indian
grave in southwestern Missouri, collected by Mr.
Horatio N. Rust. It forms one of a series of
similar objects in the Philadelphia University
Museum, the evolution of which can be traced
clearly from the gourd vessel imitated in pottery
by the aid of examples in the same collection.

"In Korea little girls make their own dolls.
They cut a bamboo pipe stem about five inches
long into the top of which they put long grass,
which they have salted, made soft, and fixed like
the hair of a woman. No face is made, but they

THE DOLL BOOK

sometimes paste a little white powder in its place.
They dress the stick in clothes like those worn by
women and sometimes put a hairpin, which they
make themselves, into the hair.

"The children of Korea make shadow pictures
on the wall with the hand as we do, but they are
always intended to represent a priest of Buddha.

"Shadow pictures are also made on the wall in
Japan where they are called kage ye, literally
'shadow pictures.' The commonest one is that of
the tori sashi, a person who catches birds with a
pole armed with bird-line. Other shadow pictures
are made in Japan by means of small figures cut
in black paper and mounted on sticks. These are
called suki ye (light), 'passing through pictures."*

My collection is rich in Chinese dolls; a friend
living in Shanghai has interested herself in the
subject, and with the help of her boy has succeeded
in finding many a rare and curious doll.

The "tilt up" or roly-poly doll which English-
speaking children have come to call German, be-
cause the most common representation of it here
is an old German woman with a baby in her arms,
is the oldest kind of doll in China.

Dolls as well as people fall under the inexorable
law set down in the Book of Rites, which governs
the style of dress and conduct of the Chinese from
the cradle to the grave. The length, cut and

ORIENTAL DOLLS

material of the dress worn by the poorest coolie is
as carefully set down as the coat of arms, buttons
and peacock feather of the royal family and
mandarins. The initiated needs but a glance to
tell the class, or station in life, a doll represents.

Dolls belonging to the old Chinese families have
tiny deformed feet like those of the ladies. Al-
though these dolls are nearly three hundred years
old, the Chinese consider them quite modern.

The ancient Chinese doll served a twofold pur-
pose; it instructed as well as amused the chil-
dren, whether it represented an historical, or a
mythological character; it had a history repeated
times innumerable in response to the reiterated
demand for "a story," thereby fixing the narrative
in the child's mind, until in the course of time it
had unconsciously imbibed a very generous knowl-
edge of history.

The ancient little manikins invariably repre-
sented emperors and the various members of the
royal family, celebrated generals, great scholars,
historical characters, actors and other men of
prominence.

Two of these tilt up dolls in my collection came
from Shanghai and with them the endorsement that
they represent members of the royal family and
that all the ornamentations and decorations are
exact copies from life. The court dress is repro-

THE DOLL BOOK

duced in the proper crude coloring; and the out-
standing gilt ear pieces with the curious characters
that to the initiated read, "Long life, happiness
and many children," are facsimiles of those in the
Emperor's cap.

With these dolls came the story that they are
not only the playthings of children but of men of
the higher class.

An after-dinner game somewhat resembling our
"whirl the platter," is played with them. When
dinner is over and the table cleared, the doll and a
bottle of samshu are brought in and placed before
the host, who takes a drink and sets the image
whirling down the table.

The man whom he faces when he stops whirling,
has the privilege of taking a drink of samshu, the
Chinese sherry. He starts the doll off on another
whirling expedition and the game goes on for
hours; meantime some men get a great many
drinks and others get very few% according to the
chances of the game. Still some men get so expert
that they can whirl the doll so as to stop it where
they please.

The tilt up doll serves another purpose, as wit-
ness the following from a recent book by Frances
Little. The writer of the paragraph was a kinder-
garten teacher in Japan and the quotation is from
one of her letters home:

ORIENTAL DOLLS

"Have you ever seen those dolls that have a weight
in them so that you can push them over and they
stand right up again? Well, I have one of them
and her name is Susie Damn. When things reach
the limit of endurance, I take it out of Susie Damn
a la Maggie Tulliver. I box her jaws and knock
her over and she comes up every time with such a
pleasant smile that I get in good humor again."

There has been until quite recently a noticeable
absence of feminine dolls in China; the baby doll
has only lately made its appearance, and is still
quite a young child. My specimen shows Euro-
pean influence much more than the larger and
older dolls, as nearly all its wearing apparel is
made of foreign fabric. Its skirts are quite short
and it is wrapped in a square of heavy goods, the
two side points, and the one at the feet, being
fastened securely around the doll's body. The
fourth point extends up over the head, and serves
the purpose of a cap, in a sensible as well as an
amusing way.

Chinese children prize their dolls far more than
European or American children do, for the reason
that they are only allowed to play with them at
allotted times. They are never permitted to beat
or bruise them; they are taught to handle them
carefully, as dolls are preserved from generation
to generation.

THE DOLL BOOK

A very ancient doll with fierce mustaches and
long hair represents one of the gods of the upper
and lower regions and is very much revered, as it
is used in various religious ceremonies and carried
in processions, as the Virgin and Child are in
Roman Catholic countries.

The doll in China, as elsewhere, is the expression
of the individual or the nation; thus one finds
Manchu dolls with feet of natural size, like those
of the Empress and all the women of her court.
Many of the dolls seen at the present time represent
the various classes that live in the provinces. One
finds them dressed in characters, from the Emperor
in his yellow-roofed palace to the commonest Can-
tonese coolie.

A pair of more modern dolls in my collection
belong to the present Manchu dynasty — the wom-
an's feet, as will be seen, are of natural size —
they are a Manchu general and his wife, who stand
about twenty inches high and are wired to a solid
base. They were part of the loot of the Emperor's
palace in Pekin during the late war and are admir-
able specimens of art. Their faces are very
expressive, being exact counterparts of high-class
Manchus.

They are a charming pair; the garments of
Madam are bedight with rich embroidery, and
her slippers, which stand on wooden heels three

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4) C M

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^ 2

ORIENTAL DOLLS

inches high, are covered with spangles so arranged
that the toes look like the heads of dragons.

A band of velvet and embroidery covers the
forehead and part of the head on the side of which
is coquettishly set a "red, red rose." The Gen-
eral's boots are high and thick soled and the entire
wardrobes of the pair are absolutely correct as
to cut, color and decoration.

It will be remembered that the Chinese have
little choice in the matter of dress. Each one
wears the garments of his class, the proper decora-
tion and color of which was decided for him hun-
dreds of years ago.

A doll from Souchow wears the common clothes
of the ordinary woman, a narrow skirt of dark
blue, with a loose jacket of the same material,
wadded. Under this jacket she has another jacket
of brocaded material; her shoes are made of cloth
with soles of several thicknesses of paper, like
those worn by the women of the class she repre-
sents.

She has a band of black velvet across her fore-
head which is fastened under the hair at the back,
and judging by her severely plain hair is appar-
ently an old woman, although her face does not
show age.

A Manchu nobleman wears the inverted wash-
bowl hat, tassel and feather which indicates his

THE DOLL BOOK

rank. Like all people of his class, he wears an
embroidered chest-protector that indicates to the
initiated his family or social status.

A Pekinese woman and her servant are admir-
able counterfeits of the real thing. Her feet are
so tiny that she could not by any chance stand
alone, and her shoes are richly embroidered.

She wears trousers, as the women of China have
worn them for hundreds of years. They are
trimmed with bands of rich material and handsome
embroidery, and are made of fine brocade like
her upper garment, which is very elaborately
trimmed.

Her hair is smoothly laid in front and held in
place with a velvet band which is the foundation
for handsome gold ornaments, embroidery and
artificial flowers. Her earrings are so large and
elaborate that they rest on her shoulders.

Her servant is very plainly dressed in dark blue
and she wears many ornaments in her hair. Her
feet are of natural size and she must be constantly
by her mistress' side to assist her whenever she
stands or walks.

The faces of all three are carefully molded of fine
composition and are exceedingly well made. They
are unmistakably Chinese faces.

A Shanghai bride wears the embroidered-pleated
red wedding gown of her class with a plastron

ORIENTAL DOLLS

down the front. Her head is adorned by a close-
fitting cap covered with pearl beads; a thick red
veil, with pearl fringes covering it, hides her face.
She wears trousers underneath her gown and the
tiniest of red shoes.

The bridegroom is gowned in the beautiful
purple the Chinese love so well; the square of em-
broidery on his breast and sleeves indicating his
rank. His pigtail is carefully braided and his head
covered with a close cap.

A curious figure that shows how the small-
footed women have to be carried about, even in
the house and garden, is in the Museum of Natural
History, New York.

A Shanghai woman of the better class wears the
pleated skirt with bands of embroidery up and
down the broad front pleat, and around the bot-
tom. The upper garment is made of brocade and
trimmed with bands of embroidery. Her bandeau
is velvet with ornaments of gold and feathers;
from her tiny ears are suspended enormous ear-
rings of seed pearls.

The omnipresent Chinese boy is represented
true to life. His garments are silken, exquisitely
made and fastened with loops of fine braid. A
skull cap covers his head and his long pigtail is
eked out with strands of black thread.

A Chinese paper doll has a papier mache head

THE DOLL BOOK

with flat pasteboard body dressed in colored paper;
he carries a bamboo cane and a paper hat or cap
is perched on his head.

In China the 7th day of the New Year is cele-
brated with honor. Dolls, or figures representing
the gods of happiness, rank, longevity, health, etc.,
are cut out, and dressed in many colored garments,
and hung up at the doors of all houses, as omens
of good luck.

In certain kinds of illness, special puppets are
used in the belief that they are able to restore the
invalid to health. The principal one is a fac-
simile of the goddess "Mother"; these puppets are
made to play, and to dance back and forth near
the door of the sick room several times, and then
having exhausted their power, are taken away. If
the sick person recovers, the family must give a
puppet-show.

The more one knows of the Chinese, the more
is he bound to respect their knowledge of science
and certain forms of art. Their ingenuity de-
velops many a grand and comical conceit, which
shows that they have a well developed sense of
their own kind of humor.

There is an annual custom among East Indian
little girls that must be very hard on them, par-
ticularly if they are not able to buy all the dolls
they wish. At a certain season of the year, on the

ORIENTAL DOLLS

Dassivah Feast, they dress themselves in their
best costumes and go to the nearest river or water
tank and solemnly cast their little dollies into it.

It is a curious rite and said by some writers to
be in imitation of the adults' custom of putting
their dead into the Ganges, which is considered a
sacred river. Other writers with more plausibility,
say that the girls offer up their dolls as a pro-
pitiatory sacrifice to the goddess who presides over
the destinies of the river; that formerly children
were thrown into the water to appease the wrath
of the river god, but that one time an humane
ruler forbade this practice, and that figures took
the place of the children, and that the figures grew
smaller and smaller until they were like the girls'
dolls. Whatever the origin of the custom, it is a
curious one, and as the girls get no more dolls for
three months, I am sure they cannot be very fond
of it. The fete lasts nine days; on the last day,
boys come and toss in their toys. The little dolls
are only made of clay, very likely for this purpose,
painted and dressed like their elders, but they
cannot but be dear to the children, who must dis-
like to see their beloved playthings sink out of
sight or float away down the stream.

A European doll gives the greatest delight to
Indian girls; they love the blue eyes and flaxen
hair, as the greatest contrast to their own brown

THE DOLL BOOK

faces. European dolls are given as prizes in the
mission schools. Missionaries write home to ask
for dolls with clothes that can be put on and taken
off, but beg that no wax dolls will be sent, as the
climate is too hot for them.

An English society sent out a box of dolls to
India, most of them dressed in white, as is the
home custom. The teachers were aghast when
they opened the box, for white is the color of
mourning in India, and it would never do to give
these to the little ones, so they gathered together
and put on colored aprons, ribbons and trimmings
where they could, and colored dresses where other
alterations were not possible, before they presented
them to their classes.

Human figures in clay, dressed to the life, are
made by the clever, artistic people of Krishnagar,
Bengal, Lucknow and Poona. The traveler will
find numerous collections of these in the various
museums. Some writer on India has declared
that there are more gods in the country than there
are people. Many of these are in the human form,
and while, strictly speaking, they are not dolls,
still in many instances they do serve as children's
playthings, like the god-dolls of the North American
Indians.

In many houses in India, dolls have a room to
themselves, they are so numerous; they are made

ORIENTAL DOLLS

of clay, wood and other materials and painted in
gay colors.

In a "Peep Behind the Purdah," Edmund
Russel says of East Indian dolls: "When a girl
takes her first lesson in cooking — between four and
five years old — to celebrate this her mother permits
her to invite her little girl friends to a doll's mar-
riage— such funny dolls! wood, terra cotta, plaster
— all bits of cloth and tiny jewels."

CHAPTER VII

JAPANESE DOLLS

THE Japanese puppets and shadow dolls are
very similar to those of China, and finding
nothing to the contrary, one is led to sup-
pose that the Japanese children received
their first dolls from China, along with law, religion
and the arts, the afterflow perhaps of some one of
the many wars between the two countries, or of a
war with Korea.

The dolls of China and Japan differ from each
other as much as the people of the two countries
do, which is really a good deal, although many
casual observers cannot differentiate one from the
other.

One writer on the subject suggests that the clay
figures dressed to the life and made to do duty at
the graves of the dead, instead of representing
servants and relatives that were sacrificed at the
time of the funeral in the long-gone dark ages of
the past, might have been the progenitors of the
present-day doll. This is hardly probable, how-

JAPANESE DOLLS

ever, as these puppets were used in other Oriental
countries, and besides, dolls from Egypt antedate
the use of the puppets.

The first Japanese dolls represented gods of the
country, mythological beings, demi-gods, evil and
beneficent deities in certain religious ceremonies
and plays. Some of the modern ones belong to
this class, but not many. An occasional family
may treasure several specimens of these, but they
are veritable antiques, having been in the family
for centuries. Dolls are preserv^ed and treasured
and passed on from one generation to another,
more perhaps than in any other country in the
world.

The Japanese doll inheritance is a striking ex-
ample of family life and so far as I have been able
to discover one peculiar to that country. It is a
beautiful idea and one which we might adopt with
pleasure and profit.

When a little Japanese maiden is born there is
bought for her a small collection of dolls consisting
of efligies of the Emperor, the Empress and five
court musicians.

The Emperor and Empress wear tinsel crowns
and carry in their hands the insignia of their oflfice
and sit flat upon a dias as was the olden custom,
for the traditions of the reigning family are dear
even to the poorest peasants.

THE DOLL BOOK

The same small child is never allowed to play
with these except upon high days and holidays,
the principal one being the annual feast of dolls of
Hina Matsuri.

This takes place on the third day of the month
and is the great children's festival of the year; the
girl's Christmas. Tiny invitations of the beautiful
Japanese paper stamped with the girl's own seal,
are sent out all over Japan and the children go, not
only from house to house, but from city to city to see
these wonderful dolls.

This festival lasts three days during which all
the dolls are on exhibition. All the remainder of
the year they are locked up in the fire-proof go-
down or store house, where the careful Japanese
keeps his treasures.

The first day of the festival the dolls are taken
out and arranged on tiers of red-covered shelves
built for the purpose. They are placed according
to their rank as they would be in real life, the
historic members of the royal family taking the
exalted position, followed by their suites and re-
tainers, all complete in the smallest detail.

During the three days' festival the Japanese
tiny maidens are quite wild with delight, made
manifest by soft laughter and a gentle chatter-
ing of musical voices. For every doll there is a
complete set of doll furnishings, cooking and

JAPANESE DOLLS

kitchen utensils and a multitude of toilet articles
that might well bewilder a strange child.

Cherry Blossom and Peach Bloom are dressed in
their brightest and prettiest kimonos and they
clatter about on their little wooden clogs looking
like gay birds of paradise. The morning of life is
beautiful in any country and with one or two excep-
tions which need not be mentioned here, the life
of the Japanese child is ideal.

Some white saki, the Japanese rice wine, is
purposely brewed weak for the children. This
they offer to the dolls in the tiniest of egg-shell
saki-cups and later when a certain time has elapsed,
gravely proceed to drink it themselves.

When the girl marries, she takes the hina with
her to her new home and keeps them until her
eldest son marries, when they become his property.
Thus it will be seen that in time a family may be-
come the possessor of a valuable collection. The
family of the last Shogun, the Tokugawas, is said
to possess several fine hinas, in fact, the largest
and finest collection in Japan.

J. J. Rein says of this day: "The female sex
appears in holiday attire. The whole household
store of dolls, among which are many old family
treasures, are brought out for the girls and set up
in a special room. The living dolls entertain the
dead ones with food and drink, the former con-

THE DOLL BOOK

sisting of shiro-cake or white sweet cake. In
Kiobashidora at Tokio, where the shops are large
and splendid, and some of the dolls expensive,
there is great activity on this day. Formerly the
Feast of Dolls fell, as a rule, in April, when the
favorite sakura trees are in blossom, a bloom which
resembles our peach tree."

Bayard Taylor, in speaking of this occasion,
says: "Mothers adorn the chamber with blossom-
ing peach boughs and arrange therein an exhibi-
tion of all the dolls which their daughters have
received; these represent the Mikado and Court
personages for whom a banquet is prepared, which
is consumed by the guests of the evening."

* "At every temple festival in Japan there is
a sale of toys. And every mother, however poor,
buys her child a toy. They are not costly, and are
charming. Many of these toys would seem odd
to a little English child. There is a tiny drum,
a model of the drum used in the temple ; or a mini-
ature sambo table, upon which offerings are pre-
sented to the gods. There is a bunch of bells
fastened to a wooden handle. It resembles a rattle,
but it is a model of the sacred suzu which the virgin
priestess uses in her dance before the gods. Then
there are tiny images of priests and gods and god-

* From the epitxnne of "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan,'* in Doctor
Gould's recent book, "Concerning Lafcadio Hearn," p 263.

JAPANESE DOLLS

desses. There is little of grimness in the faiths
of the Far East; their gods smile. *Why religion
should be considered too awful a subject for
children to amuse themselves decently with never
occurs to the common Japanese mind.'

*' Besides these, there are pretty toys illustrating
some fairytale or superstition and many other
playthings of clever devices, and the little doll,
O-Hina-San (Honorable Miss Hina) which is a
type of Japanese girl beauty. The doll in Japan
is a sacred part of the household. There is a belief
that if it is treasured long enough it becomes alive
Such a doll is treated like a real child; it is sup-
posed to possess supernatural powers. One had
such rare powers that childless couples used to
borrow it. They would minister to it, and would
give it a new outfit of clothes, before returning it to
its owners. All who did this became parents.
To the Japanese a new doll is only a doll; but a
doll that has received the love of many generations
acquires a soul. A little Japanese girl was asked,
'How can a doll live.^' 'Why,' was the lovely
answer, '7/ you love it enough, it will liveF

** Never is the corpse of a doll thrown away.
When it has become so worn out that it must be
considered quite dead, it is either burned or cast
in running water, or it is dedicated to the God
Kojin. In almost every temple ground there is

THE DOLL BOOK

planted a tree called enoki, which is sacred to
Kojin. Before the tree will be a little shrine, and
either there or at the foot of the sacred tree, the sad
little remains will be laid. Seldom during the life-
time of its owner is a doll given to Kojin.

"When you see one thus exposed, you may be
almost certain that it was found among the effects
of some poor dead woman — the innocent memento
of her girlhood, perhaps even also of the girlhood
of her mother and of her mother's mother."

A doll dressed as the daughter of a Samurai was
the first doll of my collection, the nucleus around
which I have gathered several hundred of her
"sisters, cousins and aunts," from all parts of the
w^orld. It came into my possession as follows: I
had been admiring the dolls and toys an English
friend in Yokohama had bought for Christmas,
and said: "These dolls are so handsome, I would
like one myself."

Imagine my surprise at receiving this beautiful
doll early Christmas morning; everybody laughed
and seemed to think it a great joke, but I was so
delighted with the dear creature that I did not see
any joke about it, and Cherry Blossom has been
one of my pleasantest souvenirs of that Japanese
Christmas.

The real Japanese dolls, those that the natives
use are made with absolute fidelity to nature.

JAPANESE DOLLS

These people who manifest the sex they find in
flowers, foliage and everything in nature, see no
reason for making a sexless doll. As a conse-
quence, some very proper and conventional peo-
ple have been a bit shocked when they discovered
the Japanese doll in its entirety. Dolls manufac-
tured for export at the present day are minus all
unnecessary organs.

The favorite doll among foreign children is one
possessed of several wigs, with hair coiffured in
different styles, so that the same doll may do duty
one day as a young lady with bright kimono and
red petticoat, and obi tied butterfly fashion; while
the next day, without waiting for Father Time to
get in his work, she may be easily transformed into
a grandmother, with somber clothes and iron-gray
hair combed severely back and twisted into a knot
in the nape of the neck.

A young girl always wears a red petticoat which
is the badge of her maidenhood; once she is
married, she puts it away for her daughter's use.
Some pessimistic people have a way of wishing a
bride good luck by saying they hope "love will not
fly away with the red petticoat."

A wife's garments may be as handsome and
expensive as she likes to make them, especially
her obi, or sash, but they must be of subdued
colors, gray, brown, dark blue, etc.; the bright

THE DOLL BOOK

colors belong to the young and unmarried. The
obi is usually the most costly article of a woman's
wardrobe; when woven of real gold cord, it may
cost hundreds of dollars, and is kept as an heir-
loom in the family for generations. The doll in
my collection has five wigs, a basket of flowers and
a giddy parasol with which to transform herself into
several high-class personages. She is perfect of her
kind.

Another doll shows the method of carrying chil-
dren, attached to the back with a slender band like
suspenders. I also have a dozen or more most
fascinating baby Japanese, with their shaven heads
and kimonos cut in exactly the same fashion as the
mothers.

A doll that was sent to me labeled ''A Japanese
Lady," is so palpably a doll of European manu-
facture, though dressed in a kimono, that I call
her my "Eurasian," i.e., half European and half
Asiatic.

My emperor and empress are marvels of ar-
tistic realism. They are sitting, each on a dais,
exactly as the present Emperor and his ancestors
sat for hundreds of years before Commodore Perry
crossed the Pacific and knocked so loudly at the
door of Japan, that the people were obliged per-
force to open it and "look see" what was going on
outside.

Japanese doll with five wigs. With these wigs a doll shows five differ-
ent stages of womanhood — from maidenhood to old age

JAPANESE DOLLS

Every minutia of their two costumes is carried
out with absolute fidelity to the old court dress.
The Emperor's tiny sword, Empress' court fan,
with its long silken lassets, the cut of the garments,
the material, the soft bamboo mats, every par-
ticular is correct; their garbs are exact replicas of
those worn by the imperial family for unnumbered
ages.

This pair I consider the gem of the collection,
as they are difiicult to obtain, and still more diffi-
cult to preserve intact after possession.

The Japanese paper dolls are innumerable;
some have a round composition head like the
Chinese; others are all of paper and most ingeni-
ously made. Japanese children are in such close
touch with nature that they are able to harness a
pair of big beetles to a paper carriage with paste-
board wheels. Into this they put their paper
dolls who sit erect with silken reins in their hands.

CHAPTER VIII

DOLLS POSSESSED OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

THERE is a variety of dolls particularly in
Europe, representing saints and supposed
to be possessed of the same miraculous
powers attributed to their name saint.
Though they are not, properly speaking, dolls, still
they cannot be ignored in a book of this kind.
Probably the best known and most widely wor-
shiped one of this class is the Blessed Bambino
at Rome.

Its home is in the Ara Coela, the Altar of Heaven,
the Franciscan Church of Rome, and is the point
around which clusters an immense amount of
tradition and veneration.

It represents the infant Christ and history says
it was carved from a tree that grew on the Mount
of Olives, by a Franciscan monk who died before
his work was completed. An angel, say some, and
others St. Luke, completed the work. In any case
the carvers were not skilled workmen, as the image
is very crudely done; the wooden curls being very
rigid and the face without expression.

DOLLS OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

The image wears a jeweled crown and over its
silken garments there are attached real and imita-
tion jewels so closely that it is with difficulty
one can see the material. The little feet are hol-
low and of gold, cinquecento workmanship.

At Christmas and Epiphany the image is carried
in procession up and down the church escorted
by church dignitaries and a military band playing
dance music. At last it is brought to the door,
where at the top of the one hundred and twenty-
four steps, it is held up for the kneeling crowd
to worship and to be healed of their ills. After
high mass the Bambino is placed in the treasury
where it is kept under a glass case and only shown
to visitors at certain times.

Before 1870 it used to be taken in state carri-
ages to the homes of people who were ill. Later
for many years an Italian nobleman furnished the
carriage for its transportation, but now that is
given up for the Bambino is seldom taken from
the church. If the image turns pale when brought
to the patient, it is believed the invalid will die;
if it is to live the face of the Bambino becomes
quite pink.

The Blessed Bambino was crowned in the Vati-
can, May 2, 1891. Additional importance at-
tached to it on January 8, 1894, when His Holi-
ness, Pope Leo XIII., granted indulgence to all

THE DOLL BOOK

who would, with humble and contrite hearts, re-
peat the following prayer once a day for one
hundred days, the indulgence to be applicable to
the dead prayed for as well as to the living :

" Our most amiable Lord Jesus .Christ who for us was born
in a grotto, to deliver us from the darkness of sin, to draw us
near unto thyself and to light in us all thy holy love. We adore
thee as our Creator and Redeemer. We recognize thee as our
Lord and King. As a tribute we bring to thee all the offerings
of our poor hearts. Dear Jesus, our Lord and God, deign
to accept this offering and in order that it may be worthy of thy
grace, pardon us our sins, enlighten us; illumine us with thy holy
fire that thou camest to bring into the worid. Illumine all this
in our hearts. Let our souls in this manner become a perpetual
sacrifice to thy honor. Do this that we may always act for thy
greater glory here on earth in order that we may some day par-
take of the infinite love of Heaven. Amen. "

Tradition tells the story of a false Bambino
having been palmed off upon the monks, which
incident caused the Holy Fathers to discontinue
the custom of lending their blessed child. The
sick who need its services now must visit it in
person, or get help by means of letters addressed
to it.

T. B. Aldrich, relates the legend in charming
verse. Nina, the wife of a peasant living in Rome,
grew ill and besought her husband to bring the
blessed child to comfort her.

"One morning two holy men
From the convent came, and laid at her side
The Bambino, Blessed Virgin; then

The Blessed Bambino at Rome. A figure that has played an important role
in the Catholic Church for many hundreds of years

DOLLS OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

Nina looked up and laughed, and wept
And folded it close to her heart and slept.

But she shrank with sudden strange new pain,
And seemed to droop like a flower, the day
The Capuchines came, with solemn tread.
To carry the Miracle child away."

Her one desire seemed to be to again possess
the Bambino. She importuned her husband to
get the long-haired Jew, Ben Raphaim, to carve
a Bambino like the holy child.

When he had done so, no one could have told
the difference between the two, and Nina hid her
image away and became again so ill that the Bam-
bino from the convent was brought the second
time.

When the sacred infant was once more in her
arms, she quickly recovered, and telling everyone
she was well, bade them leave her. When alone
with the Bambino she removed the clothing from
the image.

"Till the little figure, so gay before
In its princely apparel, stood as bare
As your ungloved hand. With tenderest care
At her feet 'twixt blanket and counterpane
She hid the babe."

Then with trembling fingers Nina cunningly
bedecked the image that Ben Raphaim had made,
with the broidered gown and golden crown, and at
the close of day sent for "the Capuchines who

THE DOLL BOOK

came with solemn tread and carried the Bambino
away."

That night there swept down over Rome a
storm that shook the earth to its center. In the
midst of the tempest roar there came a sudden
knocking at the convent door, and the convent
bell began to toll as if moved by ghostly hands.

No one dared open the door; at length one
more bold than the others neared the portals when
a flash of lightning revealed in a chink under the
door "two dripping pink white toes." They flung
down the chain.

"And there in the night and the rain.
Shivering, piteous and forlorn,
And naked as ever it was born.
On the threshold stood the Sainted Child."

Never since that time has the Bambino been
allowed to leave the church, not even to go to a
prince's bed, unattended.

The statue of the Virgin del Sagrario, in the
Toledo Cathedral, has a reputation second to that
of the Blessed Bambino in Rome. This e&gj is
carved from black wood resembling ebony, and
it is said to have a most extensive wardrobe; in
fact, there is a gown for each day in the year, and
some of them are covered with gems; the jewels
belonging to this statue are valued at several
million dollars.

DOLLS OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

According to the newspapers there is in Balti-
more, Maryland, U. S. A., a doll called ''La Infan-
tila," which is thought by her owner to possess
supernatural powers that enable her to perform
miracles in the way of healing disease. The doll
occupies a room by herself in solitary grandeur,
reclining on a canopied bed of solid silver. She
is the possessor of rich jewels and costly costumes
in which she appears from time to time; these are
valued at thousands of dollars. These and a fine
piano have been the votive offerings of those who
have received benefits at her hands. The piano
is played by her visitors as a part of the service
of adoration. At stated intervals, certain fete days.
Madam, her owner, gives receptions for the doll
which are attended by guests from far and near.

In the Jesuits' Chapel, Santa Fe, there is a won-
derful eflSgy of Christ carved from hard wood and
enameled to look like flesh. The young girl who
takes the veil is taught to look upon the figure as
representing her betrothal, and to some tempera-
ments this doll lends a very real significance.

San Pedro is the patron saint of Sante Fe, New
Mexico; in one of the churches he is represented
by a wooden figure to whom is attached wonderful
powers. It is said that on the eve of the crucifixion
the image shows signs of life, moves, breathes,
sighs and trembles. For many years the aston-

THE DOLL BOOK

ished populace discovered that on the day after
the crucifixion, the key had changed hands. This
they believed took place at cock-crow before the
cathedral doors were flung open on Easter morn.

In the recent excavation at the famous Palace of
Momus in Crete, there were found three figures
of faience that were made 1500 b. c.

The most curious part of the costume of one is
an oval apron padded over the hips. On the head
is a high crowned hat and there are three serpents
twined about her. She has two attendants who
are dressed in a similar manner.

In Asakusa Temple, Tokio, Japan, there is a
large number of dolls, each possessed of certain
supernatural power. In the museum connected
with the temple there are about forty of these
arranged in a gallery on the left. They are called
"I-ki-nine quio," the living dolls.

Some of the dolls have so natural an expression
that one might easily believe that they were living
pictures. The scenes represented relate to the
miracles performed by Kwannon, the goddess of
Mercy, whose kindness is inexhaustible. This
goddess is herself seen in a thousand varieties of
statues always with an excess of arms and hands
that she may be able to reach forth and help all
who call upon her.

"Along the shrine path in the valley of Saas,

DOLLS OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

where the watershed marks the boundary line
between Italy and Switzerland, there are figures
in twelve shrines so old that the people do not
know when they were made. Each one represents
a scene from the New Testament. The groups of
figures are crumbling to pieces, the soldiers of
Pilate are dropping their swords and bucklers,
the wise men of the East are falling prone in the
dust. The robes of the Israelites are cracking with
the rigor of an hundred Alpine winters, while the
tinsel stars and broken skies are slowly burying
the broken little manikins." Many of the more
ignorant peasants, ascribe miraculous power to
some of these, but in spite of this they do nothing
to save them from the destructive hand of Time.

The Santa Christo of St. Michaels, Azores, is a
rudely fashioned image of wood robed in splendor
and studded with jewels of great value; it holds a
scepter, set with sparkling brilliants in its right
hand and is altogether one mass of tinsel, light and
color.

It was the gift of a Pope to the nuns of the now
long extinct Esperance Convent and has for cen-
turies engrossed the veneration of a credulous
multitude who credit it with a record of amazing
miracles.

The Santa is believed to have cured many a
person of a fatal illness and to have revealed to

THE DOLL BOOK

any number of maidens the secrets of their lovers'
hearts and to have frustrated sacrilegious attempts
to abstract some of its valuables, by stepping out
of its niche and placing itself against the door of
the church.

Near Lake Nyassa in Central Africa, the tribes
use a queer doll symbol. Whenever a member of
the tribe dies, a rude doll of wood and rags is made
in which is hidden a small bark box. It is thought
that the spirit of the dead man is caught by the
witch doctor and shut up in the box.

All the dead male dolls are deposited in a hut,
where no one but members of the tribe are allowed
to see them. An occasional missionary, with un-
limited tact and persuasive powers, has been able
now and again to get sight of them, and from them
we have the story of the witch doll.

In a collection owned by little ten-year-old Sallie
Rice of New York, there is one doll credited with
miraculous power.

"It is the Christ child in papier mache — the
little Bambino seen in Italian churches upon whose
healing touch some Italian mothers depend to
cure their sick babies.

''This particular Bambino is of life size. It has
real hair which clusters in dark ringlets about its
chubby face. A halo of gold spreads its ray in
semi-circular fashion at the back of the head. It

DOLLS OF SUPERNATURAL POWERS

is garbed in an embroidered silk robe, decorated
with gold spangled lace."

The Black Virgin and Christ-child in the Ca-
thedral of St. Jean on Fourriere Mount, at Lyons,
France, belongs to the supernatural dolls. The
chapel is full of votive offerings, crutches that have
been cast aside by its help; arms, legs, hands and
feet in miniature, symbols of other cures per-
formed by the aid of this virgin.

CHAPTER IX

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

IF it be true that the history of a nation may
be traced through a collection of any one
thing belonging to it, what history there
must be in a collection of dolls which repre-
«?j sents and repeats customs, costumes and periods.
The history of such a collection embraces certain
of the arts and sciences; touches upon literature;
reaches into the historic past and gilds each mani-
kin with an air of reality.

One of the largest and the most important col-
lections in the world belongs to Her Highness, the
Princess Mother of the Queen of Roumania. It
is usually spoken of as belonging to the Queen
herself, but the credit of it must be given to the
Princess Mother.

This collection numbers over a thousand dolls,
thirteen hundred to be exact, many of them life-
sized, dressed in national and historic costumes.
In many cases they are arranged in groups show-
ing the occupations of the people and often the
process of some manufacture.

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

In 1899 this collection was exhibited in the
palace of the Margrave at Karlrush, when it at-
tracted great attention from all parts of the world,
not only because of its size but also for its wonder-
ful lessons in sociology. It reflected in a most
interesting manner the mutability of fashion, and
proved a pleasing commentary on the taste of past
generations.

The nucleus of this collection was a number of
dolls showing with great exactness the fashions of
former centuries, particularly those of the Black
Forest region. As the costumes of many of these
dolls had no counterpart even in the historic collec-
tion of costumes, Her Highness conceived the idea
of rescuing the dolls from an undeserved oblivion
by exhibiting them and devoting the proceeds to
charity.

The idea grew and the collection, too, for all the
crowned heads of Europe contributed one or more
dolls in national costume until there is nowhere
another so valuable a collection. Some of the
life-sized figures wear costumes that had been
carefully packed away for ages. There are dolls
representing every European country, many of
them dating from the fifteenth century with exact
reproductions of the fashions of that period.

At the exhibition the dolls were arranged in
centuries, beginning with the daughter of an

THE DOLL BOOK

Egyptian king of the year 1500 b. c, and ending
with the new woman on a bicycle. Two beautiful
dolls showed the costumes of Carmen Sylva, Queen
of Roumania, at the ages of seventeen and at fifty.

Many of the royal gifts were dolls representing
the donors in early life. There were groups show-
ing coronations, ceremonies, weddings, funerals,
in fact, every phase of Roumanian life was repre-
sented with exact fidelity and truth.

One of the interesting features of Carmen
Sylva's collection is the names of the royal givers
of the dolls. Queen Victoria was a contributor,
and her daughter, the Empress Frederick, and her
grandson, Emperor William II, was a generous
contributor, sending a miniature image of himself
when he was a child.

Queen Margherita of Italy sent one of the Pope's
guards, a Roman contadina, and a Venetian gon-
dolier, the garments of each convincingly accurate.
Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, sent a number of
picturesque Dutch dolls and the Queen of Servia
contributed dolls wearing the Servian national
costume.

In addition to the royal and historic dolls, there
are in the collection peasant dolls representing
every European nation in every century.

The peasants from the Black Forest were ar-
ranged in groups, showing the various industries

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

of the country with the manikins at their work.
This is undoubtedly the most valuable collection
in the world.

The collection of one hundred and thirty-two
dolls which belonged to Queen Victoria, cannot
compare in size or value with Carmen Sylva's
collection, but the dolls of the English Queen are
rich in sentiment and memories as they were
dressed by her own hand, and they were all persons
of note, most of whom she had seen at the opera or
theater; the others were historical characters that
had appealed to her.

The Queen was very devoted to her dolls and
played with them until she was fourteen years old,
thus satisfying what Victor Hugo calls the most
imperious instinct of female nature.

Frances H. Low, in a gorgeously illustrated vol-
ume on Queen Victoria's dolls, gives many inter-
esting particulars concerning the lonely Princess
and her large family of dolls, particulars which
were furnished by the Queen's private secretary,
Sir Henry Ponsonby. He says: *'The little
favorites of the little Princess, were small wooden
dolls which she could occupy herself with dressing
and they had a house in which they could be
placed. None of Her Majesty's children cared for
dolls as she did; but then, they had girl compan-
ions, which she never had.

THE DOLL BOOK

"Miss Victoria Conroy (afterward Mrs. Ham-
mer) came to see her once a week and occasionally
others played with her, but with these exceptions
she was left alone with the companionship of her
dolls. The Queen usually dressed the dolls fronf
some costume she saw either in the theater or
private life.

"There is indeed ample evidence in the care and
attention lavished upon the dolls, of the immense
importance with which they were regarded by
their little royal mistress; and an additional and
interesting proof of this is to be found in what one
might call the 'dolls' archives.' These records are
to be found in an ordinary copy book, now a little
yellow with years, on the inside cover of which is
written, in a childish, straggling, but determined
handwriting: 'List of my dolls.'

"Then follows in delicate feminine writing the
name of the doll, by whom it was dressed and the
character it represented, though this particular is
sometimes omitted. When the doll represents an
actress, the date and name are also given, by means
of which one is enabled to determine the date of
the dressing, which must have been between 1831
and 1833, when," Sir Henry says, '*the dolls were
packed away.

^'Of the one hundred and thirty-two dolls pre-
served, the Queen herself dressed no less than

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

thirty-two, in a few of which she was helped by the
Baroness Lehzen, a fact that is scrupulously re-
corded in the book ; and they deserve to be handed
down to posterity as an example of the patience
and ingenuity and exquisite handiwork of a twelve-
year-old princess.

"The dolls are of the most unpromising ma-
terial and would be regarded with scorn by the
average Board school-child of to-day, whose toys,
thanks to modern philanthropists, are often of the
most extravagant and expensive description. But
if the pleasures of the imagination mean anything,
if planning and creating and achieving are in
themselves delightful to a child, and the cutting
out and making of dolly's clothes especially, a
joyous labor to a little girl, only second to nursing
a live baby, then there is no doubt that the Prin-
cess obtained more hours of pure happiness from
her extensive wooden family than if it had been
launched upon her ready dressed by the most
expensive of Parisian modistes.

*' Whether expensive dolls were not obtainable
at that period or whether the Princess preferred
these droll little wooden creatures as more suitable
for the representation of historical and theatrical
personages, I know not; but the whole collection
is made up of them and they certainly make
admirable little puppets, being articulated at the

THE DOLL BOOK

knees, thighs, joints, elbows and shoulders, and
available for every kind of dramatic gesture and
attitude.

"It must be admitted that they are not aestheti-
cally beautiful with their Dutch doll — not Dutch
type — of face. Occasionally owing to the chin
being a little more pointed, or a nose a little blunter,
there is a slight variation of expression; but with
the exception of height, which ranges from three
to nine inches they are precisely the same.

''There is the queerest mixture of infancy and
matronliness in their little wooden faces, due to the
combination of small sharp noses, and bright
vermilion cheeks, consisting of a big dab of paint
in one spot — with broad placid brows, over which,
neatly parted on each temple, are painted elabo-
rately elderly grayish curls. The remainder of the
hair is coal black, and is relieved by a tiny yellow
comb perched upon the back of the head.

"The dolls dressed by Her Majesty are, for the
most part, theatrical personages and Court ladies,
and include also three maids — of whom there are
only seven or eight in the whole collection, and a
few little babies, tiny creatures made of rag, with
painted wooden faces.

"The workmanship in the frocks is simply
exquisite, tiny rufHes are sewn with fairy stitches;
wee pockets in aprons, it must be borne in mind,

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SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

for dolls of five or six inches, are delicately finished
off with minute bows — little handkerchiefs not
more than half an inch square are embroidered
with red silk initials, and have drawn borders;
there are chatelaines of white and gold beads so
small that they almost slip out of one's grasp when
handling; and one is struck afresh by the deftness
of finger and the unwearied patience that must
have been possessed by the youthful fashioner."

There are mothers with their babies and there
is a "Mrs. Martha" who must have been a favorite
of the young Princess. She is a buxom house-
keeper with white lawn frock, full sleeves, and
purple apron pinked all around.

She wears a white lace cap adorned with many
frills and tied under her small wooden chin with
pink ribbons. She stands beside a home-made
dressing table of cardboard covered with white
brocade. Perhaps she was the head-housekeeper
of the small establishment kept by the Duchess,
and mayhap was wont surreptitiously to give the
small child a bit of toffee or a sweet cake.

The young Princess had a long board full of pegs
into which the feet of these little dolls of hers fitted,
and by the aid of these she rehearsed dramas,
operas and pantomimes.

These dolls were made in Holland and each one
when it arrived in England bore a placard on its

THE DOLL BOOK

back upon which was inscribed the following
legend :

"The children of Holland take pleasure in making
What the children of England take pleasure in breaking."

The young Queen of Holland has a large collec-
tion of dolls which helped to make happy her
youthful days, for she adored dolls. They were
carefully labeled and set apart to become the play-
mates of her children and children's children.
There were soldiers, sailors, statesmen, court
dignitaries, maids of honor, a charming fishwife
from Scheveningen with her bright cloak and
scoop bonnet, and others from different parts of
the country, all of them in national costume.

It is said that when her dolls displeased her, the
youthful Queen would threaten to make them
queens as the direst punishment which she could
bestow upon them. Bows and salutations bored
her more than anything else; so she contrived to
make a certain number of obeisances another
punishment.

Two that are said to have particularly delighted
young Wilhelmina's heart were governesses soberly
clad in black silk; these are counterparts of the
two that had charge of the young Queen's early
education.

Mile. Koenig of Paris has the distinction of

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

being at the head of the first doll museum ever
organized. It is connected with the Musee Peda-
gogique in the Rue Gay Lussac. Mile. Koenig's
idea was that the customs and costumes of the
country could be better taught by means of dolls
than they could be by books and pictures.

To this end she sent a request to all normal
schools of France asking that each one send to the
Musee Pedagogique a doll dressed in the costume
of the district or in the native garb of some imme-
diate colony.

The request was most generously responded to,
and when it became known that Mademoiselle
wished dolls for her teaching, many of the foreign
consuls residing in Paris, sent little models of the
peasant dresses of their own countries. Naturally
the collection is richest in French dolls, but other
countries are very well represented. Miss Williams,
founder of the Normal School Guild, presented a
fine collection of English, Welsh and Scotch dolls.
Count Robin Levetzan gave a handsome collection
of Danish and Icelandic dolls.

In "The Diary of an Idle Woman," we find the
following anent Turkish dolls: "At a great Bazar
at Constantinople there is a museum of ancient
costumes among which is a collection of grotesque
wooden dolls as large as life in the style of Mrs.
Jar ley's wax works, with flaming cheeks, protrud-

THE DOLL BOOK

ing eyes, and the blackest of wigs. They represent
all the officers of the court, the trades and pro-
fessions of the capital — ^with not a woman among
them."

Walter Fewks has not only collected a large
number of the katchinao or god-dolls of Tusayan
Indians, but has published, through the Museum
at Washington, a book giving their origin and
characteristics so far as known. They form a part
of the great ethnological collection in the Museum.

In the Peabody Museum at Harvard, there is a
collection of the Moki dolls, a part of the Mary
Hemenway collection. Frank Gushing collected
many of these images also.

In the dead-letter division of the post office de-
partment at Washington, there is a pathetic little
collection rescued from misdirected or undirected
mail matter. One is saddened by the thought of
the tears that have been shed by reason of the
non-arrival of these packages. Poor little things!
that would have given so much happiness had they
been so labeled as to reach the desired destination.
Uncle Sam treats them well, but he counts only as
a stepfather in this case, and what is a stepfather
against one's very own mother!

In St. Marks, Venice, there is an interesting col-
lection of automatic dolls of great age. On special
occasions they come out in procession, first an

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

angel with a trumpet, marches in front of a Ma-
donna and blows the trumpet, and then passes on.
After this comes the three Wise Men of the East,
followed by three Moorish monarchs, all pausing
before the Virgin and then bowing profoundly
before disappearing.

The great George Sand had an unlimited num-
ber of dolls, and there was one in particular that
remained her playmate for many years after she
was a grown woman.

Charlotte Bronte tells about the dolls she and
her sisters played with. They were nearly all
wooden dolls, soldiers, statesmen, and so forth, and
the Bronte children used to make them act parts
in little plays they themselves wrote. She says her
own was the prettiest and most perfect of the lot
and that she called him the Duke of Wellington.

Mrs. Soleness in Ibsen's "Master Builder," had
"nine lovely dolls," which were destroyed by fire
and far more regretted than the family jewels,
portraits and laces which went at the same time.

In Charlotte Yonge's biography, we are told
that she had a collection of sixteen dolls, ranging
in size from a large wooden one to a tiny Dutch
one, and that they used to be set on chairs along
the nursery wall, and do their lessons when she
had finished hers. The novelist's ungratified wish
was for a wax doll and a china doll's service.

THE DOLL BOOK

These were far more expensive then than now,
and the young family had little money to spend on
such luxuries for children.

Madame Michelet writes in her "The Story of
My Childhood": "My first doll I had to make;
I desired an idol to adore. It must have a head
with eyes to see, with ears to listen and a breast to
hold a heart. All else was of little importance."
Although in later years she had a goodly collection
of dolls this one of home manufacture always held
the supreme place in her heart.

Eugene Field, who wrote the most adorable
things for and about children, owned a fine collec-
tion of dolls which were often made the mouth-
piece of his quaint stories, affording him and his
friends infinite amusement.

Among famous "grown ups," who are still con-
stant to the dolls of their childhood, we find the
name of Ellen Terry, the most charming actress of
her day. She has a choice collection which she
carries about with her wherever she goes. These
childhood puppets are most artistically dressed,
with a quaintness that makes them fascinating to
all beholders. There is but one boy doll in this
doll family.

Mrs. Josephine Daskam Bacon, the popular writer
of children's stories, has a collection of dolls said
to be one of the best in the world. The favorite

100

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

has a special carriage and is often in evidence when
Mrs. Bacon receives her friends.

Madame Emma Eames, the famous singer, con-
fesses to a weakness common to feminine humanity.
Her doll-children, the playmates of her childhood,
are even now her companions in many a quiet
hour.

Miss Bateman, the actress, and her professional
sister, May Robson, have each a collection of dolls,
friends of their childhood.

Thomas Shields Clark, a New York artist, has
a splendid collection of dolls for studio use. Among
them are the Japanese Emperor and Empress
sitting on a dais clad in the rich and beautiful
garments of the ancient regime.

A lady of Boston has a large collection which
she uses for exhibition purposes.

In the Museum at Amsterdam is a collection of
figures representing long gone costumes and cus-
toms.

Clyde Fitch, the successful playwright, has a
collection of dolls which he uses to portray char-
acters in his plays.

A collection of rare and ancient dolls belongs to
Miss Brewer of Longmeadow, Massachusetts. It
is the result of years of travel and represents many
countries and strange customs. A rare and most
interesting one is a Lenten doll from Italy.

101

THE DOLL BOOK

This, as is evident from its name, possesses a
semi-religious character; on Ash Wednesday, a
doll dressed entirely in black, holding a distaff in
one hand, is hung out of one of the upper windows
of some Italian houses. By its side is hung an
orange into which five black feathers and one white
one are stuck.

Early every Saturday morning a black feather
is taken out, but the white feather remains until
Easter when it is withdrawn. Then the doll is
taken in and put away carefully until next lenten
season arrives.

A curious native doll in the collection is a "sang"
root from the Carolina mountains. The head,
hands and feet are made of dried apples ; her face
is brown and wrinkled, having the appearance of
great age ; she is in the act of dipping snuff, having
the stick in her mouth and snuff box in her hand.

There are two coolie women from Trinidad ; one
has a ring in the nose to show that she is engaged
and the other bears the henna mark on top of the
head which denotes the wife.

Many of Miss Brewer's dolls are veritable
antiques; some of them natives; others imported
ones which have stood the storm and stress of a
long ocean voyage in addition to the wear and tear
that would naturally result from being the play-
things of three or four generations.

102

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

Miss Annie Fields Alden has a fine collection
of dolls of which she wrote most entertainingly in
The Ladies^ Home Journal a few years ago. The
gem of her collection and the germ also, is a doll
from Martinique, the gift of Lafcadio Hearn.

"The doll is made of leather and stands eleven
inches high and is golden brown in color. It is
dressed in gay chintz and wears a turban of the
same material upon its head. Around the neck
are rows of glittering beads and in its ears imposing
earrings, and it carries itself with indescribable
spirit."

Miss Fields has also one of the mandrake root
dolls which is absurdly like a man with a baby in
his arms. A crusader, a Spanish monk from
Seville, Garibaldi, and St. Francis of Assisi are
among the celebrities in the collection.

Miss Fields tells about showing her dolls to
Helen Keller, the wonderful girl whose only revela-
tion of the world about her comes through the
sense of touch.

Miss Keller said: ''Do not tell me about them
until I can find out how much they say to me
themselves in this way."

She took the Indian doll into her sensitive hands,
felt of it carefully, then said: "I should say that
this represents an Indian but for one thing; it has
cheeks as round as an apple, while the Indians

103

THE DOLL BOOK

have angular faces with high cheek bones." But
then she added: "This may be a bad specimen."

She has a wooden doll in a bed, made by a boy
belonging to the White Chapel Mission, London,
that is unique, and a pair of black silk dolls from
Venezuela that are perfect negroes.

In the red room of the White House there is
a collection of Japanese wax dolls presented a few
years ago by Madame Takahira. There are
about thirty of these little persons, and they stand
in solemn state in an inlaid glass and ebony cabi-
net. The nursemaids and house servants are
especially gorgeous, and the glory of the police-
men of Japan, as shown by the dolls, puts even
the marine corps of the United States in the shade.

Mr. Edward Lovett of Croydon, England, has a
fine collection of dolls which he uses for lecture
purposes. He possesses some very rare specimens
and his collection is very valuable. The one most
interesting, in a way, is a doll that was brought
home by a steward who went out on the search
expedition for Sir John Franklin and his men.
This doll is an Eskimo from Point Barrow, and
has a long and eventful history.

Mrs. Max Heinrich of La JoUa, California, has
a unique collection of dolls. One, her favorite, is
called ''Olive," and is said to be the owner's con-
stant companion. She is very smartly dressed

104

SOME REMARKABLE COLLECTIONS

and the hair on her head once grew on the head
of that most adorable actress, Ellen Terry. Natu-
rally this would make Olive more precious than
the others or any ordinary dolls.

These dolls have many costumes and in their
day play many parts; they are the source of much
pleasure and amusement to all of Madam's visitors.

Among the numerous collections of dolls owned
by royalty, the one belonging to the Princess
Clementine of Belgium is not to be overlooked. It
has been used for exhibition purposes for various
charity organizations, and is very well known.
The oldest dolls of the collection, it is said, were
found in the ruins of Babylon; next are some
Roman dolls of ivory, wax and clay, then several
Greek dolls; the latter, though less ancient, are
more valuable than the Roman, as there are few ex-
amples of these extant; they represent gods, heroes
and common mortals. One of the most interesting
dolls in the collection is a Fingo native doll from the
Orange Free State, which, though rudely carved,
plays an important role in its country.

Other interesting items in the Princess' collec-
tion are the dolls from Greenland, from Assam,
British India, dolls of the old French Court, a
Bartholomew baby, and some very rare North and
South American Indian dolls. From the stand-
point of variety the collection is most unique.

105

CHAPTER X

DOLLS OF THE NATIVITY

IN the Middle Ages religious plays were per-
formed with marionettes in the churches of
Europe, dolls being made to represent saints
and even divine personages. Some of them
were quite elaborate, and in one play, the manikins
took the parts of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the Three
Wise Men, angels, shepherds, and even the animals
in the stable where Christ was born. In fact, this
was the earliest type of Passion play, out of which
has been evolved the famous drama given once in
ten years at Oberammergau.

Something of the kind still remains in the "per-
sepio of Italy which is a representation with scenery
and figures of the birth of Christ and other Bible
stories.

In all Catholic countries there is always some
scene of the Nativity arranged at Christmas. Fre-
quently the exhibition remains open to the public
for weeks, and crowds of people throng the churches
at all hours.

106

DOLLS OF THE NATIVITY

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi arranged the
first one and invented the cradle for that purpose.
It was his object to place before the common peo-
ple a realistic picture of the manger in Bethlehem
with accurate surroundings and with the actors in
the great drama dressed in the costumes of the
period.

In olden times (and in some cases nowadays)
these figures were made of composition. They
are very lifelike and very natural, from eight
to ten inches high and are regarded with super-
stitious awe by the ignorant. In some the Christ-
child lies naked in a miniature manger; in
others, where the Oriental idea is more strictly
adhered to, the child wears a wadded cap, tied
round with a kerchief turban-wise and a striped
gown — in Jerusalem called a ghuzleyhr — ^wound
about with strips of cloth or ribbon. The babies
of Southern Europe are swathed about in this
fashion.

When a child is laid in a cradle, ribbons are at-
tached to it and women sometimes quarrel as to
who shall have the honor of pulling them and
rocking the holy child.

The children of royalty in all Latin countries
have exhibitions of this kind. A particularly fine
one was arranged for the present king of Spain,
when he was quite young, and was on exhibition

107

THE DOLL BOOK

for some time in Madrid. These exhibitions are
called N^beie€tmenis in Spain.

European people of large means often have an
exhibition of this kind arranged in their own
houses at Christmas and the whole scene, what-
ever it may be, is carried out with great fidelity
regardless of expense.

In some of the museums in Southern Europe
one sees these figures arranged to represent various
other Bible pictures. In the neighborhood of
Naples there is in a small museum a representation
containing two or three hundred figures of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Single figures
are occasionally found in antique shops, for which
fabulous prices are asked as having served in the
nativity exhibition; they are supposed to have
become possessed of occult or supernatural power.

In the museum in Florence there is an especially
fine persepio. One is particularly struck by the
classical helmets worn by the servants of the three
kings. The traditions of centuries are retained and
the scene is pictured with amazing fidelity.

An interesting Christmas custom in Mexico in
which figures of the Christ-child, the wise men and
others take part, is called the posada, and is un-
doubtedly of the same origin as the persepio, differ-
ing in minor detail only from the Nadeaments of
Spain.

108

DOLLS OF THE NATIVITY

In certain devout Roman Catholic families there
are figures of various materials representing the
holy family, the wise men of the East and several
attendants, which have been owned and used at
the holiday season for generations.

In cold countries, the scene is usually laid in a
thatched stable, white with snow and icicles, with
an ox and an ass bending over the Divine Child
warming him with their breath. In warmer cli-
mates, the creche is in the open air, with sunny
mountains or wild stretches of country for a setting.

Among all the Christmas mangers of the past,
depicting the setting and the personages of the
Nativity, the arrival of the shepherds and the Magi
of Bethlehem — that of Charles III. of Bourbon,
King of Naples, arranged in 1760, is the most
beautiful one in existence. It is in an historical
museum near Naples, and although there is not
now so great a crowd about it as to need a double
guard, as was necessary when it was first exhibited,
still it is the object of great interest.

The setting is forty feet wide, twenty-five feet
deep, and fifteen feet high; there are five hundred
figures of people, two hundred animals all made of
finely carved wood, wax and costly fabrics. The
Bambino lies in the Virgin's lap; she is seated on
the ruins of a temple to Apollo. The dolls are
nine inches tall, and fashioned with consummate

109

THE DOLL BOOK

art. Celebrated artists carved the figures, and the
Queen, herself, dressed them.

The following description of a posada in Mexico
is the best I have ever seen. It appeared in a
Mexican newspaper

"The posadas are called jornadas in some parts
of Mexico, and both words have a peculiar signifi-
cance, posada referring to the lodging, and Jor-
nada to the day's journey. The legend goes that
Joseph and Mary traveled from Nazareth to
Bethlehem in nine days, and that each night they
had to beg their lodging, or posada.

"The journey of these two humble subjects of
the Roman empire to the town of their legal resi-
dence, Bethlehem, or Belen, as it is called in
Spanish, for the taking of the census as ordered
by Augustus Caesar, is thus commemorated nightly
in all good Mexican homes, from December 16th
to 24th, the feasts terminating on Christmas Eve
with all ceremony and pomp.

"Several families usually arrange to hold a
posada together, and each family entertains the
others on one of the nights of the no vena. The
people assemble at a little after eight o'clock in
the appointed house, and each member of the
party is provided with a candle, the servants and
retainers of the household being included in the
party on these occasions. A procession is formed

110

DOLLS OF THE NATIVITY

headed by two pilgrims, represented by little stat-
uettes, Joseph on foot and Mary mounted on an
ass, or burro, which Joseph leads. Above the
figures hovers another, that of an angel. The
figures are usually rude, like those sold in the
puestos, but the details of the Virgin's face, Joseph's
beard, and the patient gray burro are carried out
faithfully, although the personal equation of the
sculptor enters largely into the makeup. The pair
are represented as Mexicans of the lower class, not
far off from the truth of the \ow\j origin of the holy
couple. Mary is gaudily dressed, in blue satin or
some equally rich robe, though often her hand-
some garments are not given her until the Noche
Buena.

"The procession, which is headed by those who
carry the figures of Joseph and Mary, marches
down the corridor of the house, with a choir of
ladies and girls singing the Virgin's litany of
Loretto. This finished, a portion of the party
enters the drawing room of the house and acts as
its owner in the dialogue with the pilgrims outside.
The knock at the door, and the appeal for a night's
lodging is met with a gruff reply and an order to be
gone. But the pilgrims persist, in a fascinating
old chant, like the litany of a mediaeval church, and
finally the obdurate householder relents, and the
pair enter. They are given quarters in a corner

111

THE DOLL BOOK

of the room where a quaint service is held, in which
all present kneel before the figures, which rest on
an improvised altar, amid candles and tinsel and
toys, and sing more bits of the quaint chant, with
prayers by a priest, if one is present.

"The following is a sample of the mediaeval
chant, with its translations:

"Oh peregrina agra^iada.
Oh purisima Maria,
Yo te ofrezco el alma mia,
Para que tengais posada.

"O gracious pilgrim,
O purest Mary,
~ I offer thee my soul

To be thy refuge.

"The religious part of the evening ends with this
little service before the shrine. Its close is a
signal for the youngsters, and with an assurance
born of tradition they demand dulcies, and a colla-
tion is passed, with French candies in little pottery
toys, seen in such numbers in the puestos. These
toys are afterwards kept as souvenirs.

"The pinata follows at once, and is, indeed,
come to be one of the chief features of the evening.
This pinata is nothing more than one of the big
earthenware water jars or ollas (if it is cracked it
will break the more easily), decorated with tissue
paper, tinsel, and in the handsomer ones, enveloped

112

DOLLS OF THE NATIVITY

in the great papier mache figures of angels, men
and women of all types and races. The pinata is
filled with presents of various sorts, bits of sugar
cane, clay figures and dolls, and in many cases with
presents of silver and mechanical toys of value.

"The pinata is hung up, either in the middle of
the room or in a doorway, and each member of the
party, large and small, given a chance to break it
with three blows. At first, however, the person
who is given the short club with which the blows
are struck is blindfolded and turned around three
times, leaving him in a condition which adds to the
jollity of the occasion, as those in the room have
sometimes to exercise some agility in avoiding
strong blows meant to shatter the pinata, and
which may cause damage to sundry craniums.

**Once the pinata is broken, the whole company,
great and small, joins in the scramble for the pres-
ents which tumble to the floor, gathering all possi-
ble together, the most agile securing the best and
most prizes.

**In the later posadas, when the fun needs an
added zest, dancing is indulged in, and presents
given to various of the guests, by which their
partners are found, after the fashion of a cotillion.

**On Christmas eve, or the Noche Buena, the
service and the fun both exceed those of all the
other nights. The service of asking for lodging is

113

THE DOLL BOOK

much the same, except that this time, which marks
the anniversary of the arrival of Joseph and Mary
in Bethlehem, they are lodged in a stable, repre-
sented in one corner of the drawing room. The
special ceremony of the evening waits until mid-
night, while the time is passed in dancing.

"Fifteen minutes before the midnight hour
strikes, the exercises of the Noche Buena begin,
with the singing of the litany of the Nino Dios.
This lasts ten minutes, and the other five minutes
are given to the singing of the Rorro, for the sooth-
ing of the infant Jesus. This Rorro is a beautiful
typical epitome of the songs of Mexican mothers
to their children.

*'At twelve o'clock the ceremony of the laying
of the Nino Dios in His manger takes place. A
curtain is drawn from a miniature representation
of the scene described in the New Testament, dis-
closing the stable, with Mary and Joseph, and with
a brilliant star marking the spot where the young
Christ is to lie. In the background are asses, horses
and cattle.

*'Two persons, a man and a woman, are chosen
to place the Child in His manger cradle, and by
this act, stand sponsors for Him, and become com-
padres with the host, whose property the figure is.
With this laying of the child in His cradle the cere-
mony of the nativity is completed."

114

CHAPTER XI

MY COLLECTION

jk N East Indian doll, whose ancestor might
/% easily have been a Buddha, belongs to
^ m the "tilt-up" family. She is more
heavily loaded and made of more sub-
stantial material than my Chinese specimens, but
is equally true to her type. She is tattooed on
her chin, and wears an elaborate nose ornament
and very massive earrings. Her sarong is grace-
fully arranged to show one shoulder. Her face
is yellow and so is a large portion of her dress,
mingled with red and green. She had been used
as a door-block for several years before she came
into my possession, and shows the wear and tear
of her position somewhat, and yet I consider her
one of my treasures.

My Parsee rag doll would make any doll col-
lector green with envy. She is about one foot high
and is made entirely of rag. The long straight
body is about two inches in circumference; appar-
ently a few extra windings shaped the head which

115

THE DOLL BOOK

is covered with a piece of grass cloth. The nose
is a little knob, ingeniously set in the middle of the
face; eyes and brows are worked in with black
cotton, while a thread of red does duty for a
mouth. A smaller roll of rags is fastened to the
body directly under the chin, making the arms
stand out like the arms of a cross. A similar roll
is fastened to the lower end of the body and this
is supposed to answer for feet; but one smiles to
see feet, without any legs or ankles, growing out of
the trunk. This reminds one of those fabled stags
we read of, creatures that have no middle joints to
their legs — only the doll is minus legs, as well as
middle joints; if she ever walked, it must have
been in the same graceful manner that the fire
screen or clothes-horse would walk were they so
minded. The body and feet are wound with
strips of bright yellow cotton. The yellow gauze
sarong is edged with a band of silver braid, and
the curious lady wears big silver earrings and a
gold bracelet on her exposed arm.

Two queer little squat, jointed pith dolls were
brought to me by that indefatigable traveler,
Walter Del Mar, who bought them in a shop on
the steps of the Shore Dragon Pagoda, Rangoon.
They are grotesquely painted and are guiltless even
of a fig leaf, but then, the climate of Burmah does
not make any demands in that direction.

116

3 -B

3 •+->
'*■ O

MY COLLECTION

Persian children have no dolls except very ugly
rag ones; the dresses, which represent the indoor
costumes of women, will not come off. The wild
delight of a Persian child when first she saw a
European doll with her entire wardrobe packed
in a trunk, was something to remember and im-
possible to describe.

She was sure the talking doll was alive, and it
was days before she could be persuaded that a
creature that could say "Papa," and '* Mamma,"
and go to sleep and wake up, was not as real as
she herself was.

She cast aside all her native dolls and for weeks
would have none of them; she seemed to live,
move and have her being only with that doll. At
last, strangely enough, she became weary of it
and returned to the ugly native dolls, discarding
the "European beauty," as she had called the new
one. Another instance of the call of the wild.

A Persian woman and her servant, the loot of a
returned missionary, are the crudest rag dolls I
have ever seen. The woman's full Turkish trous-
ers are made continuous, so that they cover her
feet like night-dresses children sometimes wear.

Her waist is fastened with a button as big as a
dinner plate, and her upper and lower garments
have not actually missed connection, but they
make it in such a disconnected way that one isn't

117

THE DOLL BOOK

sure that they will not eventually miss it alto-
gether.

A wisp of hair stands almost upright over her
forehead and features, which are all in the upper
part of her face; bracelets and jewels adorn her
person; her fingers are so blunt and unshaped
that they look as if they had been cut off at the
first joint.

The servant is as crude, but far more gorgeous
than his mistress. His short skirt, reaching not
more than half way to his knees, is very full, and
reveals a pair of legs so swathed in rags that they
look like the clumsy results of the beginner's ''first
aid to the injured." The tips of his fingers have
been also amputated, and he wears a figured hand-
kerchief, pinned shawl-wise over his head.

Another Persian woman has very voluminous
skirts and hands and feet that have been chopped
off short. The latter are encased in black stocking
legs that look like bags. The head is swathed in
black lace and she seems altogether in "a bunch."

My Siamese boy is modern; his body is made of
composition and when he arrived in New York
his face was smashed flat. I took him to the doll
hospital and the best they could do was the present
head, which is several shades lighter than his
hands. His gown is made of silk and his whole
costume is magnificent with gold lace.

118

MY COLLECTION

Two Turkish dolls I have are characteristic.
One wears an outdoor dress and the other a house
dress, though she has on the pearl-bedecked tur-
ban that is sometimes worn with the face veil.
She is loaded with piasters and would make a rich
bride.

The outdoor dress of all Mohammedan women
is admirably contrived to cover but not conceal the
woman; wearing the ferugia and yashmak one
might defy recognition by her own husband. The
yashmak, the long, narrow strip of black or white
which covers the lower part of the face and reaches
almost to the hem of the dress, is not much worn
by the women of Islam to-day. The more decora-
tive and less cumbersome face veil, one square of
which is folded turban-wise about the head, while
the other conceals the mouth and chin, is more
seen both in Egypt and Turkey. The full baggy
trousers and short jacket are still worn in some of
the Turkish harems, but a loose white linen gar-
ment is more common in Egypt.

My Sudanese doll is literally what Kipling says
some women are: "A rag, and a bone and a hank
of hair," only in this case the bone happens to
be a piece of bamboo. She was the beloved play-
thing of a Sudanese child, up the Nile, and even
now reeks with the smell of grease and dirt. At
first, the little brown girl, guiltless of clothing in

119

THE DOLL BOOK

any shape, refused to part with her doll, but the
sight of a few silver piasters was too much for her,
and she gave this dolly up, reluctantly, it must be
confessed. I must also confess to some reluctance
in taking the doll, but the collector's greed is
stronger than shame or pity.

The Syrian woman's face veil is hung with gold
coins. This is the fortune of the woman, her
dower, so to speak. From the time of her birth
to her wedding day, every coin that comes into a
woman's possession is added to her wedding por-
tion.

Through the Druse doll we get a glimpse of a
very curious and interesting people. The Druses
who live on Mount Lebanon belong to a religious
sect of which very little is known.

The women are noted for their beauty and the
peculiar costumes the married ones wear. The
bodice is open and exposes the throat and a por-
tion of the breast.

The crowning point is the tantour and veil which
is worn by all married women. The tantour is a
long slim horn, with the larger end fastened securely
to the woman's hair. This is bent to a consider-
able angle and then a long veil is thrown over it,
though not so as to cover the doll's face; it floats
gracefully behind.

The tantour the women wear is from one foot to

120

Lebanon doll. A hybrid, so to speak, as she was made in Europe,
while her clothes came from a Lebanon mission

MY COLLECTION ^ ^^

a foot and a half high and is made of metal or
bamboo. This is put onto the bride on her wed-
ding day and sometimes it is not removed until
her death. One refuses to imagine the condition
of the woman's head and the torture she must
endure.

The Lebanon doll is a hybrid; still, aside from
her flaxen hair and blue eyes, she is true to the
type. Mrs. Elizabeth Custer, widow of General
George A. Custer, bought the clothing at a mission
in Lebanon and put it on a European doll when
she returned home. The doll is swathed in what
is called a ghuzleyrh, which is said to be a replica
of the swaddling clothes which the Christ-child
wore. There are only a few people, even among
the natives, who know how to make the tiny cap
it wears, and Mrs. Custer considered herself fortu-
nate to be able, after much bargaining and almost
supplication, to secure one.

Some of the dolls of Siam are of baked mud and
wear no clothes. Others are of stuffed cotton,
something like our rag dolls and there are still
others made of wood. There are father and
mother dolls dressed in strips of cloth wound
round their bodies. The small dolls in my col-
lection are dressed in the same fashion. Girls
kiss their dolls by touching noses and drawing in
their breath each time. I have seen in the shops,

121

THE DOLL BOOK

where one finds beautiful ivory furniture for doll
houses, some beautiful specimens of doll temples.

A pair of dolls from India were the property
of a missionary in Illinois. The woman who
owned them knew nothing about them and I have
not been able to discover much. I call them
sitting-down dolls, as their bodies are so shaped
that they cannot stand upright.

They have seams down the center of their faces
and their eyes reach so far around that they might
almost see behind themselves. Their garments
are of brocaded velvet, gorgeous with gold braid.
The man wears a fierce mustache, and both have
most unhappy faces.

122

THE DOLL BOOK

own, which, as a blending of doll play, gymnastics,
music, mathematics and religion, leaves little to
be desired.

The children with their dolls in their arms sing:

"Oh, I have a dolly and she is dressed in blue,
With a fluff of satin on her milk white shoe,
And a lace mantilla to make my dolly gay.
When I take her dancing, this way, this way, this way."
(Dances dolly in time to music.)

The second stanza deals with mathematics and
runs as follows:

"2 and 2 are 4, 4 and 2 are 6,
6 and 2 are 8, and 8 is 16.
And 8 is 24 and 8 is 32;
Thirty- two, thirty-two
Blessed souls I kneel to you — "
(Girl and dolly kneel.)

"When she goes out walking in her mantilla shawl.
My Andalusian dolly is quite the queen of all.
Gypsies, dukes and candy men bow down in a row,
While my dolly fans herself so and so and so."
(Fans dolly to music.)

"2 and 2 are 4; 4 and 2 are 6,
6 and 2 are 8 and 8 is 16.
And 8 is 24, and 8 is 24
Blessed souls I rise once more."

The most representative Spanish doll I own, I
brought from the Canary Islands. She wears the
red petticoat which is common to the peasant class
and which always peeps out from underneath the
lifted dress.

124

Spanish doll from Salonica. She shows the Spanish type and a
fondness for gay colors

MY COLLECTION

She wears what all the women of the Islands wear,
and what I have never seen in any other Spanish
country, and that is a white mantilla. Instead of
looking like so many black crows, as the women
of Spain and Mexico do, the natives of Las Palmas
and Teneriff e remind one of the flock of white
pigeons. The mantilla is made invariably of soft
white wool, like cashmere, and all are cut after the
same pattern.

Two dolls from Spain have not the merit of hav-
ing Spanish clothes. A sailor suit and an ordinary
European walking dress do not differentiate them
from the hordes of dolls made for export.

A grotesquely amusing Mexican doll is one whose
dark body is made of red-brown satin and whose
hair is real wool. He represents a runner who
carries dispatches and light-weight parcels tre-
mendous distances in a day. His legs are three
times as long as those of an ordinary doll and his
entire costume consists of a loin cloth and a neck-
lace of colored beads. He comes from the province
of Chihuahua, where his ancestors have been run-
ners for centuries. He belongs to the '*Tarama-
haras," who are the direct descendants of those
who ran with messages and carried fish for the
Montezumas. In recognition of their efficiency,
the Mexican government made them carriers of
its messages. Some of them develop wonderful

125

THE DOLL BOOK

speed; live almost entirely nude and in the open
air. The simple life without question.

The primates that are filled with sweets and hung
on the Mexican Christmas trees, and the figures of
Judas filled with gunpowder and a slow fuse that
are hung as targets across the streets at Easter, are
not dolls really, yet they deserve passing mention.

The primates are made of paper, very bulging
in the center, where quantities of sweets are placed.
These are fastened to a long swaying branch that
is used instead of a Christmas tree. When the
proper time arrives some one strikes the dolls with
a long stick and the sweets fall out and thereupon
ensues a general scramble, for each one desires to
have his share, and when the festivities are over,
the dolls are given to the children.

The figures of Judas are made of paper, cloth
and whalebone, and filled with powder or crackers
and the fuse so arranged that the explosion shall
take place at a certain time. These effigies are
suspended from window to window and are free
targets for all the populace, whose great delight
it is to fire a missile at them, thus at this day
punishing Iscariot for his treachery.

I have several rag figures made in Mexico that
are marvels of workmanship. The fingers and toes
are microscopic, the details of the dress are car-
ried out scrupulously. Any day you may see the

126

MY COLLECTION

counterparts of my vegetable sellers, for instance,
as they ply their trade up and down the streets.
The entire figures are made of rags and the faces
are painted with rare fidelity.

The Mexicans are particularly clever in making
figures of clay. I have a whole army of them
showing every profession and occupation common
to the country. There are also old men about the
streets who will make you ''while you wait," a
statuette of yourself, and a good likeness, too.

127

CHAPTER XIII

MY COLLECTION (continued)

MY lace-maker from Le Puy was dressed
by one of the lace-makers, herself, who
reproduced her own costume exactly.
She is seated in a chair with her lace
cushion on her lap, and the cushion, which is hol-
low and padded on the outside, is fixed in a stand
that is perfectly fascinating.

Across the front there is a photographic view
of the town of Le Puy and on the sides pictures of
two pretty lace-makers. The hollow cushion is
used as a storehouse for the finished work. There
is an inch or two of torchon lace already worked
on the cushion, and the dozen or more bobbins are
all filled and ready for work.

The doll wears a little brown frock, black apron
and a small shawl folded over her shoulders. The
cap is muslin with lace frill and a big bow of
ribbon in front. Like all her kind, she is fond of
gewgaws and wears a long chain and other jewelry.
The lace-makers congregate together in fine

128

MY COLLECTION

weather and sometimes their tongues run a race
with their work. The mothers bring their babies
and cradle and tend the little ones as they throw
their bobbins about. The cradles are of wood, and
resemble little boats ; along the sides are enormous
buttons of wood, by means of which the child is
laced into the cradle by bands that cross from one
side to the other. The lacing-band is so arranged
that there is a loop for the mother's foot, thus giving
her a chance to rock the child when necessary.

In the sixteenth century there was an ancient
lace factory in Le Puy; the lace was then, as now,
fine, solid and very durable. It was in connection
with the factory that the Jesuit Father, St. Francis
Regis, who is considered the patron saint of lace-
makers, earned his canonization. Sumptuary edicts
were published by the Seneschal of Le Puy, which
threatened to annihilate the lace-makers. Father
Regis not only consoled the sufferers in their
poverty, but went to Toulouse and obtained a
revocation of the edicts. To this day, the lace-
makers speak his name with reverence, and pray
to him to help them in time of trouble.

The doll from Aries wears the Arlesian costume
complete, the distinguishing mark of which is the
big black- velvet bow on the head. She is a dainty
little lady and has a face with a good deal of French
expression.

129

THE DOLL BOOK

The peasant women from the neighborhood of
Cannes on the Riviera are typical of their class and
country; one wears wooden sabots, but the feet
of the other are encased in the modern leather
slipper with big steel buckles. Both wear aprons
and one has the skirt of her dress caught up in the
back to keep it clean. The hat of one is straw,
with pretty trimmings, while the other wears a
bonnet over her curly hair, loaded with lace and
ribbons.

A French rag doll with composition head has
stockings that do not match and all her clothes
are fastened on with paste or glue. She is comi-
cally ugly.

The French soldier is a grand affair, although —
like the real ones — he seems undersized. His uni-
form is correct and his face has expression, al-
though one might question the beauty of it.

A plaster figure of an old French grenadier wears
the uniform of the first Napoleon and is every inch
a soldier.

The men and women who come into Nice
from the surrounding country with milk and eggs
are garbed in the most picturesque of costumes.
The women wear short skirts, large aprons that
nearly cover them, with long strings tied in a big
bow in front. A bright colored shawl is folded
across the breast and tucked into the belt. The

130

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MY COLLECTION

hair is protected by a close cap with some orna-
mentation. The woman doll carries a pail of milk
in each hand.

The man doll carries a basket of eggs and a pail
of milk; he wears a peaked woolen cap, a thick
woolen jacket without sleeves. He has a beard
and mustache and his feet and legs are clothed
in gay-colored stockings and shoes with enormous
bows.

The costume of the French shepherd approaches
more nearly that of the ordinary man. His broad-
brimmed hat is set well back on his head. He
carries a staff in his hand and over his shoulder is
flung a piece of sheepskin.

Two Russian dolls in the ancient court costume
of the Czars came to me by way of the wife of a
Russian diplomat in Rome. They are gorgeous
creatures and their dress is correct in every respect.
It is said that this costume is fast disappearing, and
would have become obsolete had it not been for the
present Czarina, who wears it upon special occa-
sions, and thus makes it obligatory upon the court
ladies.

A group of ten dolls, representing a colonial quilt-
ing party, all dressed in colonial costume, was my
share of the Bloodwood Cutter sale at Little Neck,
L. I. Each doll is seated in the exact attitude of a
quilter. Special interest attaches to this group for

131

THE DOLL BOOK

two or three reasons. First, it is said to be over
fifty years of age; second, it was the property of
the man whom Mark Twain called the *'Poet
Lariat"; third, the poet's wife is the central figure,
and each doll stands for some woman of the neigh-
borhood.

The dolls are all crudely carved wooden ones.
"Flanders babies," they were called in olden times,
and while the costumes are all colonial, there are no
two alike.

A writer on Sweden says dolls are scarce there,
and tells of one girl seven years old who had never
seen one. This must have been an isolated case,
for I have rather a goodly number of Scandinavian
dolls, and I know that children of the better class
have large doll houses by means of which they are
taught domestic science, and this would scarcely
be possible without dolls to carry out the illusion.
A little lad from Stockholm is dressed like the men
and boys who live in the country and come into
town to sell wood and kindling. He has a wealth of
yellow hair and his clothes are made of sheepskin,
some of it woolly side out, and some of it dyed.
His little brown hat has a red cord and tassel.

In writing about the manufacture of dolls,
Vance Thompson tells of a visit he made to Gerlet,
who was one of a family of doll makers. In a
fanciful way she tells him that dolls are never alive

132

MY COLLECTION

until they belong to somebody, that the drawers
and boxes full of them you see in factories are all
dead dolls.

If you buy a doll and want to make it alive, you
must repeat the following jingle:

**Mittlebank, Bittlemak;
Joy and Pearl
Stop being a doll and be
My little girl."

If the doll is a boy, you must vary the jingle and
say: .

"Bittlemak, Mittlebank;
Pearl and Joy,
Stop being a doll and be
My little boy."

These mystic words she declared will bring any
doll to life.

When you come to the Dutch dolls, you para-
phrase the Biblical quotation and read: "By their
head-dresses ye shall know them," for the cap or
bonnet not only announces the fact of the woman
being married or single, but tells to the initiated
the part of Holland which she makes her home.

Here are women with great metal helmets and
others wearing lace caps, with gold spirals at the
sides like small bed springs, and again with hats
that are turned up at the front, or sides, and some
wear a Jersey cap with a wide frill of lace around

133

THE DOLL BOOK

the face; some have wooden shoes and others wear
leather ones with enormous buckles.

The helmet plays or rather did play, for they are
fast disappearing, an important part in the lives
of the women. In olden times no girl wore one
until she was married, but she owned one as soon as
she could after she was grown. When a young
man came a courting, if the girl looked upon his
suit favorably, she went out of the room and put
the helmet on her head; if she remained within
and did not wear it, he knew that she had no idea
of marrying him.

Another curious custom the women of Holland
have of avoiding saying yes or no to a proposal of
marriage; in some parts of the country when a
young man comes a wooing, if the girl encourages
his suit she keeps the fire replenished; should she
not put on fresh fuel, he goes away to bear his
disappointments as best he may.

The dolls of the Island of Maarken, like the
people, are among the most picturesque in Hol-
land. They are carefully conserved from genera-
tion to generation, like the beautifully embroidered
bodices the women and girls wear.

The dear little dolls are set about in high chairs
and ranged in regular rows and are only allowed
to get down and play about on holidays as a special
reward to the child who owns them.

134

MY COLLECTION

They all have fringes of blond hair and one
long curl hanging in front of each ear; the re-
mainder of the hair is entirely covered by the miter-
like white cap that is stiffly starched to keep it in
place. Both the people and the dolls, when they
are dressed in their best clothes, look as if they
belonged to the chorus of a comic opera.

A Scheveningen fishwife is the exact counter-
part of real ones seen on the sands at that cele-
brated watering place. She wears a short woolen
skirt, a big red cloak and a scoop bonnet that
nearly conceals her face.

My Volendam man and woman are perhaps the
queerest in the lot. The woman's cap covers her
hair entirely and has stiff tabs that stand out on
each side and her apron has a strip of trimming
across the top instead of on the bottom.

But the trousers of the man are enough to make
one shriek with laughter; they are gathered very
full at the waist band as if the first intention had
been to make a petticoat, then the fullness is un-
expectedly cut out at the knee and what is left is
caught into a band, making the man look a good
deal like a peg-top. Two huge silver buttons,
which are the pride of his life, are attached to the
waist band.

A boy and a girl from Holland are very modem,
although they wear the klompen, wooden shoes;

135

THE DOLL BOOK

still they represent the children of to-day. The
little creature in blue with cap from North Hol-
land, with her stockings half knitted, is a fair type.

The Hardanger girl wears a white shirt with
black velvet bodice, brown skirt and multi-colored
apron. The peaked cap on her head is a badge
of the women of that part of the country. An-
other one has the cap and cloak made of sheepskin
with the wool inside, and they are really very
pretty.

Another Scandinavian doll in the collection
wears a stuffy starched white head-dress over her
flaxen hair, a clumsy bodice and a white apron
with a band of trimming across the bottom.

A Norwegian baby doll with its nursing bottle
is a curiosity. Her dress and skirts are as long as
those worn by our own babies a decade ago, but
from the waist down they are swathed and wound
about with wide bands.

A Swedish nurse with a baby wears an enormous
cap and bow with lace kerchief folded across her
breast. The Hardanger girl only exchanges the
peaked cap for a wondrous crown of gilt and
jewels worn on her wedding day; her bodice is
also covered with colored stones and her apron
trimmed with wide lace.

A chubby little creature is my doll from Denmark
with a straw saucer for a hat, worn over a curious

136

1. Danish, Swedish and two Norwegian costumes; Hardanger bride, Norway

2. New Haven fish-wife, two Black Forest and two Nicaraguan dolls

MY COLLECTION

hood ; her bodice is covered with metal disks and
colored stones.

The small Egyptians of to-day have their little
wooden Ushabti in the same style as those used by
the children who played along the banks of the
Nile 4,000 years ago.

There is a variety of early Egyptian dolls, who,
like their reverend seigniors, wore wigs and had
movable limbs and long eyes; the hair of the wig
being bunched up in an indescribably ugly manner.
The majority of them were made of stone, porce-
lain or wood, but some were carved to flare out
like a hoop-skirt or the modern pin-cushion doll.
Then again they had curious crocodile dolls,
that opened and shut their huge mouths mechani-
cally; one of them is in the British Museum. All
the dolls belonging to the small Egyptian maiden
were buried with her when she died, with the fond
expectations that their spirit forms would rise with
that of the child and do her service in the spirit
world.

In Cairo we find some dolls that are Anglo-
Egyptian, but have at least a distinct Oriental
flavor. The Arabs use few dolls and they are
mostly foreign ones dressed in native costumes.

An Anglo-Egyptian group, consisting of a
donkey boy with his white cap and long blue
gown, and the son of a pasha sitting on the

137

THE DOLL BOOK

donkey, are true types of the country, although
they were bought and dressed in New York.

The favorite doll in Russia is one who repre-
sents St. Nicholas, the patron saint of children and
of the country. The sixth of December is the
Saint's day, and in Russia as well as Holland,
the evening of the fifth is celebrated. He is
represented as being loaded with gifts for good
children and a switch for disobedient ones. The
switch is seldom presented though, for children
become repentant as the day draws nigh, and
the parents grow forgiving, and so past bad deeds
are forgotten and forgiven and all share alike in
the store of good things brought by St. Nicholas.
He is supposed to enter the house by way of the
chimney, nearly always bringing a servant with
him to help in distributing his gifts.

Very interesting is a nest of wooden dolls called
Malri'shca. These are made to fit one into the
other, and are decorated in various ways by the
peasants. When taken together, they frequently
illustrate an old folk tale, or a fairy story.

One in my collection illustrates a fairy story by
the well-known poet, Pushkin. The most com-
mon subject is an old woman going to market with
a grouse, or rabbit in her hand. The various
pictures represent the troubles which overtook her
before she reached the town market.

138

MY COLLECTION

A doll from the north of Russia wears trousers
and funny little sandals, which are called "lapty."
And she carries her baby on her back in the hood
of her big cloak. Cross-stitch embroidery in blue
and red decorates her apron, and the bands of
her dress lend it a smartness it would otherwise
lack.

The Brazilian beetles are enormous, and some
clever people with deft fingers dress them up as
dolls. I have three pair; two dancing girls, a
bride and groom and two Indian chiefs. The
costumes are perfect and the wonder is how human
fingers can fashion such tiny garments for such
queer dolls.

A giant pair from the Austrian Tyrol are beau-
ties ; the girl's full white waist and handsome velvet
bodice set off a gay skirt and lace-trimmed apron.
The boy wears embroidered velvet knee breeches
above a pair of tasseled boots. The great silver
buttons on their garments are heirlooms and very
handsome. Each one wears a green felt hat with
the regulation cock's feather in it.

Three dolls from the Caugnawaga Indians who
live across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal
are rudely carved of wood, but nevertheless, fine
types of their class. One tiny fellow on snow-
shoes is wrapped, head and all, in a blanket
with a rope girdle about his waist.

139

THE DOLL BOOK

The two in a canoe are clothed in blankets with
head decorations of feathers; they have each a
paddle, and from their expression seem very intent
upon making their way downstream. The one
on a toboggan is elaborately dressed in a frock of
colored figured stuff and top-heavy head covering
with long tassel. He has a pair of snowshoes on
his sled and blankets and provisions for camping
out should he find it necessary.

My two specimens from Labrador are unique;
they are more crudely carved, if possible, than the
Caugnawaga Indians. The one on snowshoes
wears garments made entirely of leather and he
carries his blankets in a roll on his back suspended
by a band across his forehead.

The one who drives a sled is clothed in heavy
white woolen stuff; he carries his outfit, blankets,
snowshoes and provisions, a bit of dried meat,
and so forth, the same as the other Indians.

A cradle-board from the San Carlos Reservation
contains a rag doll swathed and laced on to the
board as the little papooses are. The cradle itself
is decorated with colored beads and has a hood to
protect the head.

A wooden doll from Vancouver Island is wound
about with a piece of cedar bark cloth and the
cradle-board is woven of strips of cedar bark.

Another doll from Vancouver Island is more

140

MY COLLECTION

pretentious. She is a grotesque creature made
entirely of cedar bark — a witch doctor, or fetish.
Her features are most irregular and her bark
hair is tied up in wisps on either side of her
head.

The Shoshone and Cheyenne dolls are rag bodies
with features made on a waxed cloth that covers
the head. The wigs are horse's hair and the
Cheyenne dolls are profusely decorated with beads
and small metal disks that represent money.

An American cowboy. Uncle Sam, and the
Goddess of Liberty, were the result of a raid on
a wholesale doll house in New York, where the
people at first absolutely refused to sell me a doll;
they relented later and sent me up these three very
good specimens of American dolls.

I have a lovely pair of dolls from the Pyrenees,
the Basque country. They wear wooden shoes
that turn up enormously at the toes, elaborately
carved. The white stockings are hand knitted of
an intricate pattern. The young man wears velvet
breeches, full white shirt with his coat hanging
over his shoulder; his long hair is covered by a
flat cloth cap.

The young woman wears a dark skirt, lace
trimmed white apron, gaily colored kerchief folded
across her breast with a long dark hood on her
head. She has a distaff in her hand and is

141

THE DOLL BOOK

spinning fine wool, though this does not appear
very plainly in the photograph.

My Spanish toreador is clothed in red and yel-
low, decorated with big buttons and gilt braid ;
he is a very gorgeous creature.

A pair from the Black Forest are a perfect de-
light; they wear the costumes of the peasants
which is both serviceable and picturesque. The
boy has long dark hair, the girl light, and both
coiffures are waved and the hair carefully arranged
under their hats. The boy's coat and breeches are
dark and plain, while the girl's colored bodice is
elaborately laced and trimmed.

An English friend brought the funny little rag
dolls from Nicaragua; the features are carelessly
constructed and the black hair is made of cloth;
the hats seem very elaborate, but they are simply
pieces of rags trimmed with other pieces of rags.

An Austrian peasant wears a queer little conical
cap, tied under her chin and her skirt and bodice
are decorated with bands of handsome embroidery.

My collection of baby dolls and nurses with
babies numbers a dozen or more. The old-time
colored mammy with the white baby is familiar to
both North and South.

The French baby is encased in a wadded sack
with a hood. His hair is short cropped and his
face decidedly French. The Italian baby is

142

MY COLLECTION

swathed and tied about with green ribbons. Both
Italian and French babies are carried about on
pillows.

The Japanese baby takes its first view of the
world from the back of mother or nurse, securely
fastened so that it may not fall, but its little head
bobs about in a very inconsequential and unreliable
manner.

My Italian nurse with baby in arms is a gorgeous
creature with lace fichu, lace apron, ribbons, beads
and a complicated headdress.

The Brazilian women carry their babies on their
backs somewhat after the fashion of the Japanese.
My specimens are made of rags covered with black
silk, and both baby and nurse are bedight with
colored ribbons and lace. The nurse's turban is
light blue and her gown of bright colored cotton.

The Viennese baby is encased in a sheath of mus-
lin and lace decorated with bows, which extends to
the head where it is surrounded with a pleated
frill. The baby wears a lace cap and has its face
covered with a white dotted lace veil. It is carried
about on a pillow or in the nurse's arms.

A pair of dolls from Baron Kropp's Bay, in the
Museum of Natural History, New York, look as
if they had had their heads turned by the journey
from Siberia here, but I am told it is the fashion
to wear them that way, with strings of beads and

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plaits of hair hanging in front. They are clothed
altogether in skins and look most comfortable —
on a cold day. A direct contrast is an Ojibway
doll made entirely of bamboo, which looks as if
he had been made for warm weather only.

144

1. Lake George papoose and Labrador dolls

2. San Carlos doll and cradle-board; Soudanese doll

Though lacking in form, these dolls illustrate the " mother idea" the world over

CHAPTER XIV

MY COLLECTION (continued)

I HAVE three dolls from the Orwell Art Indus-
tries, Dublin, that are characteristic of their
race and typical of their several classes. The
best one of the lot is an aged woman, with
true Milesian cast of features, somewhat lined and
worn with age and the hardships of the Irish
peasant life.

Her gray hair is nearly covered by a large cap
with lace frill; her somewhat faded blue eyes are
mild and all are dominated by a sweet, gentle
expression. She comes from the southwest coun-
try, and shows more character and expression in
her dear old face than any other doll I own.

My Colleen Bawn has dark brown hair, blue
eyes, fresh complexion, somewhat tanned, and
wears a colleen cloak of brown with full hood to
protect her head.

The Gaelic boy wears the costume of the seven-
teenth century, somewhat after the Robin Hood
style. His tunic is belted and there are strappings

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THE DOLL BOOK

on his legs; his scarf is wound round his body
and buckled over the shoulder, and his soft hat
has a fine buckle; indeed he makes a brave show.

The principal feature of these dolls is the un-
breakable faces, which will stand an immense
amount of ill usage without any disfigurement be-
yond the soiling of the paint. The color cannot
be wholly destroyed and the faces will also wash
clean, no matter how dirty they get. The material
of their composition is a secret.

The Welsh doll came from a town in Wales
with an absolutely unpronounceable name. She
is dressed as an old woman, and carries out the
character completely. The most notable feature
of her costume is her hat, which is made of the
same material as an American silk hat. It is
tall, conical and has a flat brim. The amusing
part of it is that the Welsh woman wears this great
hat over a muslin cap with full pleated borders at
back and sides, and which is tied under the chin
with a ribbon. Over all this is worn the hood of a
red or black cloak. Underneath a cotton dressing-
sack appears a woolen dress, gathered at the waist
line by an apron tied in front with a ribbon.
She carries the inevitable knitting basket, without
which no Welsh woman is ever seen. Her needles
are made of wire hairpins, and her work, a baby's
sack, is half completed.

146

MY COLLECTION

My Newhaven fishwife and Highland Laddie
came across the Atlantic together. The woman
is true to her type with creel on her back and her
multitudinous petticoats; her expression is good
and were she to open her mouth one might expect
to hear her call out in melodious tones, "Caller
herrin/ oh!"

The Laddie, in his Stuart plaid, sporan and
cairngorm buckle and bare knees, looks as if he
could dance the reel till the "wee, sma' hours,"
and then be ready for a big dish of haggis.

John Alden and Priscilla are two Pilgrim dolls,
dressed in homespun, whose birthplace was Ply-
mouth, Massachusetts. They wear the garments
of the Pilgrim fathers and mothers, and are a dear
little couple. Priscilla looks so meek with her
white apron, white kerchief and white mob cap,
that one wonders she had the courage to say even
though ever so softly: "Why don't you speak for
yourself, John.?" John's collar, cuffs and hat and
cape are good replicas of those worn by our an-
cestors in those bygone days.

There are fine mechanical dolls made in Switzer-
land; dolls that walk about on a platform and
bow and fan themselves and strike the hour with
their fist on a bell. They also manufacture in
that country delightful wooden images of Santa
Claus. Certain families confine themselves to this

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THE DOLL BOOK

work; the father and mother carve the heads, the
most difficult part, and the children take the other
portions of the body.

The Vaudoise young woman wears a green fig-
ured skirt, black velvet bodice with elbow sleeves,
a white kerchief folded within the neck of the
bodice, and a big white apron. She has real hair
hanging in long braids down her back. On her
head is a little straw hat with a high straw pompon
rising out of the center of the crown.

The Bernoise young lady wears the picturesque
close black velvet bonnet with lace, so familiar to
all travelers; her long, pointed stomacher is em-
broidered with beads. Her dress is black and she
wears a long blue satin apron. Her fair hair is
cut in a bang and the braids are tied with blue
ribbon. The ornamental chains, which once had
real use, and without which no peasant girl would
consider herself properly dressed, decorate her
bodice; it is the aim in real life to have the chains
of solid silver, so that often a girl's fortune is truly
locked up in chains.

Just over the border of Switzerland, in Bressane,
we find the peasants wearing a curious hat over a
white linen cap; my doll is typical; the brim of this
hat is quite flat and round, and covered with black
lace insertion; while round the back from over
the brim, hang four loops of the insertion. The

148

MY COLLECTION

tiny crown is built of lace, and around its base is
wound a gold cord with tassels hanging over the
edge of the brim.

My Kelpie maiden is a unique specimen of a
doll. She is a water-sprite sure enough, though
not in the least malevolent, nor does she change
herself into a horse as the Scottish kelpie does.
She is a native production, and comes from the
Pacific Coast, where so many novel and artistic
things are made, and she is as brown as a little
Filipino. She is made of kelp, a coarse seaweed
that is found along the coast of Mexico and Cali-
fornia. When wet, it is heavy and soggy and will
bear the weight of a child like that wondrous
water-lily in India. It is brown on the outside and
cream-white inside, and when moist lends itself
readily to manipulation. My kelpie is a symphony
in brown and white, and the ingenuity shown in
her manufacture is quite marvelous.

She stands like a sea-nymph lightly poised on
the half of a spherical seed-ball with the spoils of
her native element about her. Her features are
cleverly painted on a small seed pod, which makes
an excellent head. Her brown locks are fine sea-
weed, and the kelpie feathers on her hat have the
natural curl of the ostrich feather. Her bodice is
made and laced a la mode; her pleated skirt of
dark brown is trimmed with bands of cream

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THE DOLL BOOK

colored kelp, and at her feet there is a bunch of
seeds and feathery fronds, which she has appar-
ently gathered for the tiny basket she carries on
her arm. She dries and gets very brittle when kept
in our overheated houses, but a little dampness soon
puts her all right.

A little creature from Auvergne wears a pic-
turesque hat over a frilled white cap; its brim of
blue cloth is turned up back and front and curiously
enough is called bonspems — good days. Around
the edge is a straw binding and the top of the crown
is of white straw. The sides are of black velvet,
with straw designs appliqueed.

Two dolls from Madeira are marvels in the way
of fine sewing. They were made by the Sisters in
the Convent at Funchal, and show the native cos-
tume of a man and a woman, which one seldom
sees now, except upon children on a fete day.
They both wear the same pointed cap and soft
leather boots with red facings at the top. The
man's full short trousers and white tunic are pic-
turesque and quite suited to the climate. The
woman's skirt is red, with a neatly fitted bodice
and a small cape draped over one shoulder. The
manner of draping this indicates to the initiated the
island or province from which the woman comes.
The real people ride in great clumsy ox carts on
runners, and when they come down from a trip up

150

1. Kaiignawauga Indian on snowshoes 2. Indian woman. 3. Seminole
Indian dolls

MY COLLECTION

to the church on the mount that overlooks the town,
they ride in a **carro," that looks like a clothes
basket on runners with a seat for two. There is
one man to guide it and two to hold it back and
they do some pretty fast sledding down that hill.

My Onondaga chief as well as my chief from
Oneida has a corncob body, and the faces and
hands of each are covered with the husk of a red
ear of corn, giving them exactly the right shade for
red men. Their features are indicated with a
pencil and they wear what might pass for small
war bonnets of feathers. Their suits of buckskin
and their moccasins are trimmed with beads. They
do not look at all like Indians, though another one
with his buckskin shirt covered with hands, each
one indicating a scalp he is supposed to have taken,
does seem a little more ferocious.

One of my Mexican dolls is of clay, so old as to
recall the cliff -dwelling period. It is the god of
the cradle, and has done its duty in protecting the
little brown Mexicans and amusing them for ages.

The Iroquois doll is made of buckskin and
dressed in the same material, profusely decorated
with beads. She has buffalo hair, which is plaited in
two long braids brought forward over the shoulders.
The stoical, not to say wooden expression on the
faces of these dolls is typical of their class.

My Alaskan doll is grotesque in the extreme;

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THE DOLL BOOK

she came from that far away country, but she is
not typical of the people. She is made of rags and
a section of bamboo, and has a face so battered
that one is irresistibly reminded of a bruised and
beaten "Aunt Sally," that has served as a target
for generations of boys.

Nowhere in the world can be found more pic-
turesque people than in Italy, and the dolls of that
country are made like unto them. The types are
reproduced with great fidelity. The collection is
rich in Italian doUikins.

The peasant doll, with her white stockings and
red slippers, her strip of white linen with its
colored border and fringe hanging down her back,
her embroidered bodice and gaily striped apron, is
a fascinating creature.

The aprons vary in quality and color; some of my
dolls wear much longer ones than others, but all
are artistic and a delight to the eye. The peasant
woman of the Campagna is more elaborately
dressed than some, but as she is usually an artist's
model, that might be expected.

There are two of the Pope's Swiss Guard. One is
tall and the other short, but both wear the antique
yellow and black harlequin costume designed for
them by Michael Angelo at the Pope's request.
One carries a halberd, and both wear the soft cap
and neck ruffle of their prototypes. The manikins

152

MY COLLECTION

are comical reproductions of those fair-haired Swiss
giants, whose duty it is and has been for hundreds
of years to guard the Pope from the attacks of his
enemies. A regiment of Swiss once saved the day
for a Pope at the Vatican, and since that time a
company selected from the best families of Switzer-
land to look after the personal safety of the Pope,
has always been in evidence. They are striking
figures, as they lounge about the entrance and
they fill an imposing if not important place in the
entourage of his holiness.

The meek and lowly Sister of Mercy, wearing
the severely plain, black and white uniform of her
order, seems almost out of place among the gay
and giddy crowd.

The blue-veiled Sister who represents the Order
of Santa Maria Reparatrice is far more attractive.
These Sisters spend their lives in kneeling in per-
petual adoration before the altar of La Ciurese
Adorazione, near the Trevi Fountain. Visit the
church at whatever hour you may, you will find
two of these blue-veiled sisters kneeling, as mo-
tionless as statues before the Host upon the altar.
Of course, the couple, like the guard, is changed
every hour, but that to the uninitiated seems an
interminable time to remain in one position.

The costume of the Misericordia Brother, like
that of the real Brother, gives him a weird and

153

THE DOLL BOOK

uncanny appearance, but his looks belie him, for
he is the prototype of one who devotes his life to
good works, and the mask he wears is only to give
him that separation from his fellows which his
calling demands, and to hide his identity. The
mother house of the Misericordia Brothers is in
Florence, but there are branches of the same char-
ity in other cities. The society is hundreds of
years old, the principal object of which is to succor
the sick and bury the dead.

The members, which are recruited from all
classes of society (the King of Italy is a member,
and so may the poorest peasant be), devote them-
selves to all charitable ideas unreservedly, for they
receive no pay whatever for their labor. A certain
number are on duty day and night; they go with
stretchers and ambulances to fires, scenes of acci-
dent, or to hotels and private houses to answer any
call for help. Any one is free to ask their assistance
and it is given without money and without price.
Of course the society may and does receive gifts
from grateful people, but there is no distinction
made. St. Sebastian is their patron saint, and an
heroic size statue of him is kept in their chapel.
When a member is relieved from duty, he removes
the mask and gown and goes about his usual busi-
ness. It is a wonderful and most worthy charity,
of which Italy may well be proud.

154

CHAPTER XV

FETISH DOLLS

FETISHISM, according to the Encyclopedia
of Religious Knowledge, is one of the lowest
forms of religion, and the word which comes
from the Portuguese means a charm.
The fetish is not necessarily the symbol of a
deity; it is simply supposed to be a vehicle through
which it acts, and any object, whether natural or
artificial, animate or inanimate may become a
fetish. This is brought about incidentally by a
dream or whim. Some one is induced to believe
that a supernatural power exercises influence in his
destiny through a pebble or perhaps a feather, but
more often through some grotesque image of a
human creature — then he worships it.

Binet says the whole problem of fetishism lies in
the association of ideas, partly by heredity, and
partly by mysterious somethings not yet penetrated
by the wise men of the tribes, signs are taken
by the worshipers for the thing signified. In
short, fetishism means the adoration of a material

155

THE DOLL BOOK

object to which the worshiper attributes mysteri-
ous power.

Among various tribes of Africa, particularly on
the west coast, among the Indians in North and
South America and in the South Sea Islands we
find a great variety of fetishes, fashioned in human
form, which, though they are not, strictly speaking,
dolls, are in common parlance called fetish dolls.

Fetishism is by no means confined to barbarous
tribes; if one is interested in the subject he sees
evidence of its practice every day, even among our
own enlightened people, but this is not the place to
speak of it.

We read that the Sultans of Turkey keep a
variety of dolls made in the image of their enemies
over which they recite incantations and then beat
them and knock them about in the most horrible
manner imaginable, believing that they are thus
torturing and bringing about the death of those
they hate.

Catherine de Medici used to believe that she
could bring death and disaster to those who op-
posed her power, by sticking pins into little images,
meanwhile repeating a horrible jumble of words
which was in reality a prayer that the people they
represented might die. We all remember the
pathetic story of Maggie Tulliver who, when life
became unbearable, rushed to the attic and filled

156

FETISH DOLLS

the body of her dolls as full of pins as St. Sebas-
tian's was filled with arrows.

Some of the ceremonials connected with the Afri-
can tribes in which these fetish dolls figure are very
demoralizing. Whether they are used for religious
purposes or for witchcraft depends very much upon
the intelligence of the tribe and of the medicine
man who conducts the services, but the result is
much the same in either case, for witchcraft and
religion are very much confused in the mind of the
ignorant worshiper.

The superstitious natives believe that the fetish
doll is inhabited by spirits that have the power of
warding off evil, or of bringing good luck to the
person who gains its good will, as well as other mys-
terious powers. They are common among many
tribes, these "witch-brats with bulging eyes," as a
well-known writer calls them.

Among the many amulets worn by the Hudson
Bay Eskimos to ward off the attacks of evil spirits
disposed to harm one, is a headless doll depending
from some portion of the garment worn on the
upper part of the body. The origin of this and
what becomes of the head thus rudely torn from
the body, is lost among the early myths of the
tribe.

At Fort Chimo, Hudson Bay, when deer are
scarce, the Shaman — ^witch doctor — erects a pole

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THE DOLL BOOK

in a favorable position and fastens to the top of it a
doll made in the image of some famous hunter
chief. The image is dressed in a complete suit of
woolen stuff trimmed with black and fancy garter-
ing. From the belt of bear skin hang innumerable
strings of beads and amulets, one of which is a
wooden doll hung with face outward so as to be
always on the alert for game. Another Eskimo
fetish is a doll woman with a baby on her back.
The Eskimos have a mechanical fetish doll, a man
dressed in deer skin, sitting with his legs out-
stretched and holding a drum in his left hand; the
arms are of whalebone, and by pressing them the
image can be made to beat the drum.

Conjurers living on the east shore of Hudson
Bay use a queer wooden doll without joints, which
they hang to their belts face outward. The doll is
supposed to be on the alert, ready to ward off any
influence detrimental to the conjurer.

In olden times when the North Carolina Indians
went to war they carried with them their idol, a
large puppet of which they told incredible stories
and of whom they asked counsel when in extremity.

A fetish doll among the Navajos, is an emblem
of a nature deity called beli. In the various parts
of Mexico there are dolls that serve the double
purpose of children's toys and fetishes.

Some of the dolls of Nogales are weird and un-

158

FETISH DOLLS

canny things used to frighten children. One kind
has a grotesque human face, a woolly body and
four irregular, irresponsible legs that give the
creature a horrible ugly look as if it were half tipsy.
This doll is supposed to have a magic power like
the devil and the people frequently invoke its aid
when they are about to embark upon an enterprise
or are engaged in any nefarious business. The
children play with them when they are not too
afraid of them; mothers tell their little ones that
the dolls will punish them if they are bad, and
young and old alike believe in the magical powers
of the monstrositv.

In Korea and China straw images are used as
fetishes in a variety of ways. If a child is ill, one
of these dolls is hung before the door of the house
and the disease is supposed to leave the child and
enter it when it is taken down and burned.

Some of the dolls are hideous enough to give one
the "creeps," were they come upon suddenly in the
dark. When a follower of Buddha begins to repent
of his sins, as he is apt to do once a year, he goes
to a priest and buys a straw doll, which is from
eighteen to twenty-seven inches in height and is
supposed to be the image of the man who buys it.

The priest tells him that he will receive absolu-
tion if he dresses the image in clothes like his own
and puts plenty of money into the straw man's

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THE DOLL BOOK

stomach before he disposes of it. With the cash
is put a written statement of the man it represents
and a prayer for the coming year. The object, of
course, is to rid oneself of it as the Jews did the
scapegoat.

Sometimes the dolls are burned, but more often
they are kept until the fourteenth day of the first
month at which time the streets are sure to be full
of wandering beggars. When the owner of the
doll hears their cries, he passes the manikin through
the partially opened gate and thus makes his mis-
fortunes the property of the wretched beggar who
willingly sells his peace of soul for the paltry sum
inside the straw doll. This is the common expia-
tory offering in both China and Korea, and the
manner of making it varies but little in the different
parts of the countries.

Some of the dolls have a pair of straw sandals
(spirit slippers) which are supposed to enable the
wearer to take to his heels and to give the beggar
or small boy who is not troubled with superstitious
fears some difficulty in catching him.

The Chinese have a superstitious reverence for
ginseng, which they believe to be a panacea for all
the ills that "Celestial" flesh is heir to. The root
sometimes grows in a remarkable resemblance to a
human figure, thus giving it the name of man-plant,
and when such a one is found, the natives look upon

160

Zuni Indian god doll. These grotesque little creatures play important parts

in Indian religious ceremonies, and are then given to the

children to play with

FETISH DOLLS

it as a fetish to ward off all disease and believe it
will prolong life for several days after a person has
been given up to die.

The root, from its fancied resemblance to the
human form, is looked upon by the Chinese, much
as the mandrake formerly was, by the people of
Western Europe. They believe that the ginseng
root, when torn from the ground, like the man-
drake, emits cries and groans.

In the Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, the
natives use fetish dolls from three to six feet high,
carved of wood and elaborately painted. They are
called "winged angels," and are used as votive
offerings by the savages to ward off disease and ill
luck. Supplies of them are kept in the house for
this purpose, and it is not uncommon to see three
or four such images suspended from the ceiling
of a hut. If any one is seriously ill the most im-
portant measure adopted with a view to speedy
recovery is to make an effigy of some sort.

Crudely carved wooden images serve as fetishes
in Siberia and in South America; destitute of hair
and in some cases of clothing, they are as acceptable
to their worshipers as is the satin-gowned and
gem-bedecked Bambino in the church of Ara Coela
in Rome.

In Nova Zembla a piece of wood cut out in the
crude figure of a man is worshiped with burning

161

THE DOLL BOOK

fervor, as the natives believe the devil enters it and
would harm them if they did not pay tribute.

In British Columbia a curious, uncanny doll
made of cedar bark is thought to possess the power
of breaking the spell of the witch doctor and to
hold the power of life and death in her hands.

An English writer tells how an African suhman,
which word seems to be applied both to the spirit
and the object it for the time inhabits, is made.
The person who wishes to obtain a suhman, pro-
ceeds to the dark and gloomy recesses of the forest
where a local witch doctor resides. He places rum
upon the earth as an offering, cuts a branch from
a tree, and carves it to something like a human
body, about ten to fourteen inches in length— if it
becomes a suhman a low hissing noise is heard;
it is now a receptacle for the spirit which is to work
good for him and evil to his enemies.

Some of the Korean guide-posts might be called
fetish figures ; they are rude posts with grotesquely
carved human faces. The head of the image is
crowned with a hat, has large ears, and there are thin
strips of wood along each side to represent clothing.

The posts are placed along the roads at intervals
of half a mile; some are six feet high, are painted
and bear on the front an inscription showing the
distances. It is believed that the sign post is a
shamanistic idol to the spirits of the place.

162

CHAPTER XVI

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

UP to the time of the Doll Trust when the big
French firms combined to supply the
whole world with dolls, Thuringia un-
doubtedly furnished more dolls for the
little ones of the world than any other country.

At Sonneburg, near the northern border of
Bavaria, there is a whole colony of doll factories;
one of which has an annual output of millions of
dolls; it has a large trust capital and employs a
small army of men, women and children.

Some of the finest grades of dolls are manufac-
tured here where schools of designs have been
established since 1851. In these schools models
of all the best antique and modern sculpture are to
be found and a splendid collection of good prints.
To these schools all the young children are sent to
be taught modeling, and the most exquisite work is
the result, both in the expression and complexion
of the dolls. Germany also possesses a secret
formula for making doll powder or enamel. The

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THE DOLL BOOK

United States Consular report for 1904, states that
exports of dolls from this district has been very
unsatisfactory, and adds that were it not for the
business done with the United States, the distress
among this trade would be lamentable.

The Doll Trust in France and the effort the
Republic is making to promote her own doll trade
and especially in pushing her goods on to the
American market, together with the heavy duty on
dolls in France, are the prominent causes for the
great decline of Thuringia's trade.

The French dolls are mostly made by hand,
very little machinery being used. Some of the
new ones are quite wonderful. They walk as well
as talk and do not have to be wound up. A tiny
pressure of a spring makes them walk about in the
most dignified manner with no tottering like
ordinary dolls on tiny feet.

First in importance comes the famous and
happily named Bebe Jumeau — in other words the
articulate doll which has become world-famous.
The Jumeau manufactory is near Vincennes, and
there, in what has become a model village, about
five million dolls are made annually.

There also their dainty clothes are made, and
there is, it is said, even a doll's laundry, where the
clothes when completed are washed and ironed.
A perfect doll may cost a very large sum of money,

164

^^^^

'^^

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

especially if all her clothes are made by dexterous
French fingers and trimmed with hand-made lace,
as is often the case. If a doll is to be sent to a
royal nursery, her toilet sets and other trinkets are
made of gold studded with real gems.

One reason the French dolls have reached so
high a point of finish, is that each year there is a
prize offered for the best designs in dolls and for
improvements of all kinds.

Although dolls are for the most part made in
factories, much of the dressing and finishing comes
under the head of home industry. Near the Rue
de Temple in Paris there is a large warehouse
where hundreds of Jennie Wrens gather each day
fashioning with expert fingers, dolls' garments
according to the latest mode. In some places
girls and women are allowed to take dolls to their
own homes to dress.

Germany and Russia manufacture quantities
of dolls; in New York City there are^ several fac-
tories that turn out excellent papier mache dolls,
and that city is also the birthplace of the inde-
structible rag-doll.

The ante-type of the talking doll was really
invented in the Middle Ages by Albert the Great,
Bishop of Ratisbon, who constructed a head that
actually talked, which naturally created a great
deal of excitement. One of his disciples was so

165

-r/

THE DOLL BOOK

confident that there was sorcery and witchcraft
about it, he ruthlessly smashed it to pieces. Albert,
when the news reached him, was sorely grieved and
was heard to say: "It's a pity that the result of
thirty years' hard work should be destroyed in one
minute."

Dolls that could say "Papa" and "Mamma" were
invented in 1824 ; those that opened and shut their
eyes were invented a few years later, and gutta
percha dolls were first manufactured in 1850. For
three centuries before that time, dolls' houses had
been manufactured, and those who care to know
how a primitive doll's house looked, should ex-
amine the one in the art museum established by
Albert V., Duke of Bavaria.

Without stopping to think, one would hardly
imagine there were waves of fashion in doll's eyes.
After Queen Victoria came to the throne of Eng-
land, blue-eyed dolls became the fashion, driving
the dark-eyed ones almost entirely out of the
English market, but Spain and the Continent
welcomed them with open arms.

Vance Thompson, after a visit to Troedel
Market on a little island in the heart of the old
town of Nuremberg, where all the toys come from
and many of the dolls, says: "Many big things are
needed to make a small doll. She has her begin-
ning in a great trough where workmen knead up

166

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

into a dingy paste old cardboard, even old gloves,
old rags, and gum tragacanth. They are great
brawny fellows, these men, naked to the waist,
wearing leathern aprons. In an adjoining room
the paste is poured into molds for the busts, the
arms, the legs of dolls innumerable. There is a
special machine for stamping out the hands. I
should not like to confess how long I stood in front
of it, fascinated by the steady stream of queer
little hands that fell ceaselessly from the iron
monster — it was awful, uncanny, hypnotizing.
Indeed, the whole sight was grim and monstrous.
The low factory rooms were misty with steam and
lit by strange, red-glowing fires; always the great
steel machines pulsed and clanged; and through
the mist sweaty giants of men went to and fro with
heaps of little greenish arms and legs — until you
began to think that some new Herod had killed
all the little people in the world."

During the Middle Ages doll makers were called
Coroplastes, and their work was nearly all done by
hand, which gave their dolls a much more artistic
finish than the machine-made ones of to-day that
are so like every other doll of their kind.

Dolls' eyes are the most difficult part to manu-
facture. They are made in cellars and basements,
where there is scarcely a hand's breadth of sun-
shine to cheer the weary artists. Violet eyes are

167

THE DOLL BOOK

the most diflScult to color, and that probably is
the reason why there are so few violet-eyed dolls.
There is one town in Germany where three-fourths
of the dolls' eyes in the world are made.

The old-fashioned doll required the joint labor
of thirty men. Many of the old-fashioned dolls
and all the more modern ones have heads decked
with real hair. Most of it comes from China, but
it is so black that it cannot be used until the color
is extracted, which is done by a secret process that
turns it into beautiful blond hair. Goat's hair is
also used.

The process of manufacturing composition dolls
is much the same the world over. One who has
seen it writes:

"The hot liquid is ladled into the lead or plaster
molds. Over here the workman, holding the mold
in one hand, turns a faucet, and allows the steam-
ing white mixture to rush into the cavity. Quickly
reversing the mold over an opening in the tank,
he grasps and fills another, and another, reversing
each one to allow all the mixture which does not
immediatelv adhere to the sides of the mold to run
back into the tank.

"Another workman seizes the mold as soon as
it is cool enough to handle, and with two movements
of his hands separates the leaden sides and pulls
out the doll's head. \It is not a lovely object in

168

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

this stage, nor ten minutes later, even, when the
polisher has trimmed off the ragged seams and the
dyer has dipped it in flesh-colored paint. If it is
to be a wax doll, its complexion resembles a freshly
boiled lobster. This is because the wax itself is
white.

*'A girl or youth next paints the eyebrows, lips
and cheeks, and a man puts in the eyes. This last
is a simple operation, unless the eyes are to open
and shut, when the balancing of the lead becomes
a matter of some skill. Nothing now remains but
te put on the beautiful flaxen wig, which is taste-
fully curled and arranged by an expert workman.
No mere clod is intrusted with the doll's coiffure,
you may assure yourself. The best doll bodies are
stuffed with shavings of cork; hair, excelsior, cot-
ton and sawdust are also used. The arms and legs
are molded exactly as the heads, and are sewed to
their places by deft-fingered girls."

The life-size rag doll is the twentieth century's
model of the old-fashioned one that Grandma used
to make. It is made of heavy material and the
face is painted in oil colors that will not come off.
It wears baby's clothes, and is two and one-half
feet high.

The dolls that our grandmothers played with
were clumsy, awkward creatures compared with
the dolls of the twentieth century. The bodies and

169

THE DOLL BOOK

heads were carved from one piece and the limbs
and body were covered with kid. The features
were painted with an effort to make them lifelike,
and the hair was real in most cases.

The doll with a wax head was the aristocrat,
but it bore no comparison to the doll of to-day.
The bodies of those dolls were stiff and long, and
without joints. Their shoes and clothing were
sewed on them, and they had no accomplishments,
such as turning their heads on a spring, or of
unexpectedly saying "Mamma" and "Papa" when
the proper machinery had been arranged for the
purpose.

The Parisian doll of to-day is a work of high
art, and many a grandmother may well feel that
she has been cheated out of her birthright by not
having had such a doll when she was a girl.

The great majority of dolls are sent to market
without being clothed at all, but doll dressmaking
is a very important branch of toy manufacture.
Dickens' "Jenny Wren" is no creature of the
novelist's imagination. Scores of women earn
their living designing and making clothes for dolls.
Novelties are demanded every year, and the doll's
dressmaker must keep herself well acquainted
with the interest of the hour. During the Cuban
War the windows were filled with khaki-clad
dolls.

170

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

"To visit the dolls' dressmakers, you must go to
the Quartier Pictus, at the far end of the lane of
Montempoivre in that old edge of Paris which has
still a little the air of the real countryside. At
little tables the women sit making the wee frocks
and wee hats, according to the latest fashions of
Paris. For the Parisian doll takes the fashions
with her round the world — her shoes, her gloves,
her hatpins, her handbag with handkerchief and
powder puff — all her dainty things are copies of
those the great lady drives out with in the Avenue
des Champs Elysees."

Nuremberg is a center for the manufacture of
dolls as well as other toys and it is through this
city that the peasants of Thuringia send their dolls
to market.

St. Ulrich, a picturesque Tyrolian town, capital
of the Gardner Valley district, manufactures large
numbers of dolls, carved wooden ones for the most
part. The industry is a private one, all the work
being done in the homes. There are no factories.

There is an unwritten law that makes the work
on certain toys or parts of them hereditary in cer-
tain families.

Owing to cheapness of labor, Germany comes
into sharp competition with France, but makes
nothing so fine and elegant as the finished Parisian
doll.

171

THE DOLL BOOK

A new industry has sprung up in Ireland within
the last few years. It is called the Erin Doll In-
dustry, and was started by a clever Irish woman
who has discovered a composition for making dolls
that fills a long-felt want, viz., unbreakable dolls.
She faithfully and artistically reproduces the fea-
tures of the different types and gives great care and
attention to the details of dress that each doll may
be characteristic.

There are various private individuals in our
own country engaged in the manufacture of the
''Mammy Doll," the "Southern Cotton Pickers,"
the "Corn Husk Doll," "Miss Piper," the "Co-
lumbian Rag Doll," the ''Patty Comfort" dolls,
the string dolls, and many others.

F. H. Holms in CasselVs Magazine gives a very
interesting account of mechanical dolls: "Dolls
that lie on their backs and kick, throw up their
arms, move their heads and occasionally call for
their fond parents in most approved doll fashion.

"The days of wax dolls are over," he continues,
"a composition of paper pulp and whatnot, covered
with varnish that will stand water, has taken the
place of wax, for children must wash their dolls'
faces.

"Animal dolls are made of this material; a pig
that plays the banjo; rabbits that play croquet;
and negroes that smoke and dance, and acrobats

172

1. Alaska, Corn Husk and French rag doll

2. Italian nurse and baby, Vienna baby, and Brazilian nurse and baby

THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS

are perhaps the most common, though they can
never be commonly used on account of the cost,
six guineas (thirty dollars) being quite too ex-
pensive a doll for most children.

*'The sleeping doll is made with a small weight
hung to the bow adjoining the two eyes at the back,
nicely balanced so that when the doll is upright
it does not move the eyes, but when lying down
the weight maintaining its own position moves
round and brings down the upper part which is
colored to resemble the eyelid, ball and socket.

"The bodies are stuffed with cow's hair, or
deer's hair, cork chips or cork dust, fine wood
shavings, wood or wool, not with sawdust like John
Leech's little girl. Bellows are placed inside
speaking dolls, and clockwork adapted to the
joints of the small creature operates the puppets.

"The first walking dolls had wheels in place of
feet; later feet that moved forward were invented
in Paris. In 1813, an inventor named Benton,
applied a small steam engine to the legs which
moved alternately like human feet. Small music
boxes are used to make a doll sing and phono-
graphs take the place of the talking starlings used
in ancient Italy."

Motors are being used in the doll industry, as
will be seen by the following clipping from a late
newspaper:

173

THE DOLL BOOK

"Last week Londoners witnessed the unique spectacle of an
automaton walking through the streets of London. This auto-
maton, which has created a sensation in America, is called ' Enig-
marelle,' stands six feet high, weighs 198 pounds, and is composed
of three hundred and sixty-five parts.

"The feet are of iron, the lower limbs of steel and wood, the
arms of steel and copper, and the body an insulated steel wire
frame, cased with fiber and raw hide. The head is of wax.
* Enigmarelle ' can not only walk, but ride a cycle and write its
name on a blackboard. Locomotion is caused by powerful
motors, to which power is furnished by storage accumulators that
also maintain the equilibrium of the figure.

"At the automaton's back is a switch-board from which the
rarious movements are operated. When people see it walk they
are sure to be skeptical and hint that there is a child inside.

"Whether it is a mechanical toy or clever trick, has never been
ascertained, but the hands and legs take off and the figure is
partly undressed to show the electrical workings within him, while
his flaxen head opens and shows a battery and other apparatus.**

174

CHAPTER XVII

DOLL CURIOSITIES

A MONG the curious uses to which dolls are
/% put, is that of a sign over the door of a
JL jL shop in London, called "A Dolly Shop,"
which is not a shop for the sale of dolls,
as one might suppose. On the contrary, it is an
unlicensed pawnshop where old clothes form the
principal stock in trade.

A black doll is always used and some writers
contend that this is an image of the black virgins
that are common in Catholic countries. Again it
is claimed that this is an image of the Virgin sold
at the time of the Reformation with Church vest-
ments and other ecclesiastical refuse.

A writer in Notes and Queries flouts these no-
tions and gives the following version of the origin
of the use of the black doll as a sign:

" In Norton Falgate some centuries ago, there was a shop for
the sale of toys and rags. One day an old woman brought a
large bundle of rags to sell. She asked the proprietor not to open
it until she should return and see it weighed.

175

THE DOLL BOOK

" As the woman did not return, the bundle was opened after
weeks, and to the ragman's surprise he found a black doll neatly
dressed, wearing a pair of gold earrings. He hung it over his
door that the woman might see it and come to claim her property.
She did see it and after settling with the rag man, she gave him
the doll to use as a sign; it was a happy thought and soon
became the favorite sign of all dealers in rags and toys.

The writer further declares that this may be all
romance, as old clothing was formerly sold to un-
civilized tribes, who were willing to barter any-
thing for finery. It may have been thought a doll
tricked out in gaudy colors would be the best
possible bait for people to whom bright and showy
things more especially appealed.

There is an annually recurring festival at Dongo
Zaka, Japan, at w^hich the famous chrysanthemum
dolls are exhibited. These ingenious figures are
arranged so as to form a tableau with scenes from
history or fiction with well-known characters.

They are life-size and face, hands and feet are
made of some composition that almost shames
nature. The curious thing about them is that
whatever is represented, costumes, armor, and so
forth, are made entirely of chrysanthemum twigs,
leaves and flowers, not cut and woven in as one is
apt to think at first sight, but alive and growing in
potted plants.

The roots are quite hidden and the visitor is full
of unbelief until he is allowed to go behind the

176

DOLL CURIOSITIES

scenes. The entire body is a frame woven of
split bamboo. The roots of the plants are bound
with damp earth and packed in straw so that they
keep fresh a long time.

The plants are so arranged that the leaves and
blossoms can be pulled through the basket, frame
and woven into whatever design has been selected
by the gardener. Warriors in full armor, geishas,
famous emperors, great actors and author dolls
are shown every year, the whole picture being
executed with wonderful effect.

The famous manikin of Brussels, Belgium,
which was made by the sculptor, Duquesnoy, in
memory of the victory of Ransbeck for the people
of Brabant is nearly three hundred years old.
The English carried it off to Britain after the
battle of Fontenoy, but the Belgians retook and
brought it back to Brussels as their most cherished
possession.

"Then the French took a hand in the matter
and stole the manikin, but were eventually obliged
to restore it. In 1817 a convict, so the story runs,
took the statue and the Belgians thought it was
forever lost to them. The city of Brussels went
into mourning while it put forth every effort to
find the lost manikin. At last it was discovered
and the thief caught and put in the pillory. Then
it was decided to place an iron railing around the

177

THE DOLL BOOK

figure as they do around the statues in Scotland,
and thus surrounded it has remained unmolested
ever since."

We further read that the manikin is the only
existing statue which possesses a royal decora-
tion. It was conferred on him by the Archduke
Maximilian, who gave him rich clothes and a
servant.

Louis XV. made him a knight of his order, and,
later on, Joseph II., of Austria, conferred on him
the same honor.

On great feast days the manikin is clothed in the
robes of his Louis XV. order.

Beads are a favorite form of legacy to statues.
In 1509 a lady named Beatrice Krikemer be-
queathed to a Madonna statue in St. Stephen's,
Norwich, England, "my best beads, to hang about
her neck on certain days," while a few years later
this image came into possession of the coral beads
of Alice Carre through the same means. King
Henry III. left an emerald and a ruby as a legacy,
to be hung on the silver statue of the Virgin.

Clothes were constantly being left to statues
in the Middle Ages. A lady named Catherine
Hastings, in 1506 bequeathed "to our Lady of
Walsingham my velvet gown; of Doncaster, my
tawny camlet gown; of Belcross, my black camlet,
and to our Lady of Himmingburgh a piece of

178

DOLL CURIOSITIES

cremell and a lace of gold of Venus set with
pearl."

Papa Moseas at Burgos is a wonderful Spanish
doll, who has spent his life inside the case of a
clock over the door of the great cathedral. Like
the celebrated puppets of Venice, he used to come
out of his hiding place at the first stroke of the
hour and gesticulate to the right and to the left in
a wonderful manner. The doll's antics amused
the children to such an extent that their laughter
disturbed the congregation. The Bishop finally
decided to have the wires that worked the joints
of the arms cut and he has been a quiet and well-
behaved doll ever since.

In the Empress' palace, Pekin, there is a clock
with a contrivance that at each hour sets in motion
a doll dressed in handsome silk and gold braid
which does some tight-rope dancing.

At a competition of toys in Paris, a doll by M.
Gerome was given as prize to M. Chaslee, the
inventor of the movable eyelids for dolls.

The avidity with which children will seize upon
any substitute when the regulation doll or mother's
apron are not at hand points to the universality of
dollatry. The pillow doll, sticks, bottles and the
broom tied around with a towel or any other piece
of cloth for a trailing skirt are common and
natural substitutes.

179

THE DOLL BOOK

Whea these are not at hand, an ingenious
youngster will seize upon the nearest object and
clothe it with her imagination and be happy.

A small Japanese maiden wears a gown made
entirely of spun glass, a la Fanny Davenport.
This, of course, is simply a curiosity made by the
glass manufacturers to show what can be done
with spun glass.

A monkey doll made of sponge is another
curiosity; he wears a blue coat with red sleeves,
and a brown wool hat is perched jauntily on his
impish head. His eyes and buttons are made by
putting a small black bead on a pin and then
thrusting the point of the pin into the sponge.

Mrs. Scott Cooper, of Stockton, California, has
evolved something distinctly original and extremely
novel in the way of dolls. The heads are carved
from oak balls with a common jackknife, and Mrs.
Cooper has shown a remarkable talent for that
class of work. The lady, who is quite well known
on the American stage, has a great deal of artistic
talent, tending mostly toward modeling and carv-
ing. The eyebrows of these dolls are made of
hair from a clothes brush, as are also their other
hirsute adornments. The ears are made of sepa-
rate oak balls, pasted on with putty.

Miss Eleanor Robson has a mascot which al-
ways is one of the objects of interest among the

180

DOLL CURIOSITIES

fittings of her home behind the scenes. It is a
funny Httle Chinese doll, which invariably has a
prominent position on the wall or over the make-up
table. Miss Robson is no more superstitious than
most people, yet it is doubtful if she would feel
that she could go through a performance without
a mishap of some sort if this Chinese doll were
not in place. When she left school and went to
San Francisco to join the Frawley Stock Company
and make her debut as an actress with her mother,
who was a member of the company, she lived in
a house where there was a Chinese cook. Her
mother had been kind to him, and on the day of
Miss Robson's debut, he solemnly presented her
with a mysterious bundle, which he said contained
a doll that he had brought with him from China,
where it had been blessed by a Buddhist priest
of great sanctity.

^ Eleanor Gates Tully, who writes of Western
life of the plains, has a curious and unique way
of creating the characters for her books. She is a
young woman who likes to have things very defi-
nitely worked out in her own mind before she
attempts to write about them. She wishes to see
and feel that the characters of her book are real
people before she writes. In order that she make
these people of her imagination vivid and real, she
goes to a toy shop and purchases a lot of dolls and

181

THE DOLL BOOK

proceeds to dress them up to represent the charac-
ters in her new story. When she has accomplished
this to her satisfaction, the dolls are placed in a row
in front of her and she writes her story. That is
how she worked out the characters in her recent
novel, "The Plough Woman." Clyde Fitch is
said to write his plays in the same way.

182

CHAPTER XVIII

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND TALES OF DOLLS

ONE of the marriage customs of the Mad-
hra Brahmins of southern India is the
presentation to a bride of two wooden
dolls from Tirupati, a town in the North
Arcot District of Madras.

In certain parts of Germany, a toy cradle and
doll are given to newly-married couples as a re-
minder of their future responsibility.

In some provinces of Mexico, a huge doll is
given to the bride among her wedding presents, and
is taken with her on her wedding journey. Brides
are often so young that they have not given up
their dolls, in which case they are not discarded,
but taken to the new home, where they have an
honored place until displaced by the first baby.

Every mother's child of us may rejoice that we
were not born into the Passamaquoddy tribe, for
we would be grown women before we could ask
for our dolls.

183

THE DOLL BOOK

The Passamaquoddy word for doll is Amps-
kudahean (plural Ammpokudakekanek), an Indian
word, which means literally, figure or picture as
made on wood or other substance.

On arriving at puberty, Roman girls made a
votive offering of their dolls and toys to the gods
after a ceremonious farewell, as a sign that life's
play was over, and life's work must now begin.

In Egypt, a life-size figure of a maiden is cast
into the Nile on its rising. In ancient days, a
young girl was thrown into the water, in hope
of propitiating the river god, but that custom is
happily of the past.

Among some of the tribes of Central Africa a
rag doll is buried under the door of the room in
which a girl is born; a mutton bone is buried in
like manner when a boy is born.

At certain times of the year, the little ones of
India throw their beloved dollies into the Ganges
to propitiate the river god.

In North Devon the girls bring dolls with them
as they go begging on May Day. I have not been
able to discover why, nor if the doll or dress is in
any way peculiar.

Van den Steiner tells us that in ancient Rome a
doll, a span long, made of straw, was a favorite toy
and that one was always fastened to the roof of
their places of festivities as a sign that some frolic

184

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND TALES

was in progress and a desire that everyone should
know it.

At the time of the yearly atoning sacrifice, the
Romans threw rush dolls into the Tiber from
the Sublician Bridge ; these were substitutes for the
human sacrifices that had formerly been made to
the goddess Mania.

The Javanese bride throws her dolls into the
fire the day before her wedding, and the bridal
company give her more to replace them.

In Syria when a girl is old enough to marry and
has a desire to do so, she hangs a doll in her window.

The natural imitation of children is shown by
the surprising quickness with which they seize
upon any family event and make their dollies con-
form to the circumstances. On the occasion of
an older sister marrying, the baby's doll must at
once have a white dress and bridal veil.

If perchance a death occurs, the dolls are shut
up for days and only emerged from their seclusion
swathed in black robes.

It is not every child though that will proceed to
have a funeral on her doll's account, like one de-
scribed in a newspaper. Mrs. H., coming in from
market one morning, discovered a piece of black
crepe attached to the door-bell. She had hardly
strength to ring or patience to wait for the door to be
opened. Her eight-year-old daughter stood by

185 X

THE DOLL BOOK

the maid, waiting to greet her, and was surprised
at being caught up with her mother's arms and
smothered with kisses.

"Oh, I thought you were dead!" said the mother.

"Dead.?" questioned the child. "Why.?"

"Because of the crepe on the door. Who put it
there.?"

"I did, but Jennie is to blame. I told her to
remove it as soon as the funeral was over."

"Whose funeral.?"

"My dolly's funeral. She died last night, and
we had a funeral and then buried her in the garden.
That's all, mother. Don't cry, Jennie was awful
careless."

A St. Nicholas doll of Holland is made of spiced
cake, rolled flat, dressed with much gold and tinsel ;
the sex is suggested by the clothing, which is
judiciously arranged to make this manifest. The
dolls are given to the maids and men-servants, so
that all may have sweethearts. The confectioners
take unusual pains with these, for they are in great
demand. They are used at the festival of St.
Nicholas, which is held on the evening of the fifth
of December, in Holland.

The girl students of Chicago University recently
gave a doll party at which they dressed innumer-
able dolls for the little folk of the Settlements.
They did this, they said, to prove that a college
/^ 186

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND TALES

education does not win women from home inter-
ests. They dressed rag dolls, baby dolls, dolls
with closing eyes, and dolls of every variety in
costume successfully and the work was done with
such accuracy and nicety of detail as to prove their
dexterity in needlework. The whole affair was
voted a great success.

"My dolly isn't a plaything," said a little girl
indignantly one day, "she's real folks," and one of
the daily papers tells of two children, who, having
planned and saved their pennies, determined to
have dolls that were just as much alive as they
were. The father was allowed to execute the
commission, and these were his directions, em-
phatically laid down.

"Now, father, don't buy any doll you see. Take
it up and look at it right in the eyes, and if it looks
as if it loved you, then you can buy it."

Little Alice Terry, only eleven years old, wanted
to be a missionary to South America, and sailed
away to her new post with a doll half as big as
herself in her arms.

A practical joke played on a child caused great
grief. Her doll refused to cry when its little
stomach was pressed; something had gone wrong
with its interior mechanism. A friend who had
something of a mechanical turn of mind, volun-
teered to right the wrong.

187

THE DOLL BOOK

He soon discovered the trouble, but instead of
fastening the spring to the crying machinery, he
secured it to the tongue, so that when the doll was
squeezed, it ran its tongue out of its mouth instead
of crying. Great was that child's astonishment
and indignation. To this day she has not for-
given the author of that joke.

In certain savage countries, missionaries have
only been able to penetrate the interior by offering
dolls to the children.

Dolls or images were put to a curious use in
ancient Mexico. When the Spanish arrived, they
found large numbers of what they called ''living
images of the gods," or idols. They were made of
clay or wood and were ruthlessly destroyed, but
luckily some escaped the destruction, and Zelia
Nuthall's researches have revealed the fact that
they were never idols, but belonged to the native
system of tribal organization and were and are of
the utmost importance. The theory is that when-
ever a new colony was founded, the founder gave
each chief as a model a different clay doll painted
with the distinguishing marks, costume, decora-
tions, etc., he and his people were to adopt.
These were a sort of totem doll, and were kept
sacredly for reference, and used as a means of
identification and proof that the tribe had adhered
to its ruler.

188

A pair from the Austrian Tyrol. The regulation green hat and cock's feather
are here in all their splendor

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND TALES

Victor Hugo's delightful creation, Cosette, was
happy with her lead sword, a foot long, until some
pitying friend gave her a modern doll, and then her
misery began, for she was always more or less
afraid of the new doll, she seemed such a grande
dame.

Some American Indian dolls have their noses
sewed on. Sitka dolls are made of leather with
beads for eyes and teeth and are dressed in fur.

Olive Thorne Miller writes in September St.
Nicholas, 1888: "Laura Bridgman had a doll
which she kept with ribbon tied over its eyes that
it might be blind as she was. She doctored it and
nursed it with hot water bottles and headache drops
as she herself was doctored."

In civilized life, dolls' fashions change with the
rest of the world, but Mrs. I. D. Bradish, of Fre-
donia. New York, owns dolls, a boy and girl, or
rather bride and groom, that have been the play-
things of three generations.

A tall German officer of the Guards, who used
to meet the Grand Duchess Olga daily, asked her
for a doll, and told her that a tiny one that he could
keep in his pocket and play with when he was
on guard would do.

The small Russian maiden, although a duchess,
felt a dislike to giving up one of her dolls, and yet
her generous nature prompted her to bestow one

189

THE DOLL BOOK

of her best beloved manikins upon the German
giant, who treasures it beyond any other keepsake
he possesses.

When is a doll not a doll?

Are headless dolls really dolls, or merely "manu-
factured cotton articles"? This is a perplexing
question raised recently at the Custom House, and
Collector Stranahan has assessed many invoices in
this line of manufacturers of cotton with duty at
the rate of forty-five per cent.

In a case which came before the Board of
United States General Appraisers and the Federal
Courts for adjudication, the importers insist that
headless dolls are toys, and as such should be
admitted at the rate of thirty-five per cent, ad
valorem. The Government contends that the
articles would be dolls were the heads attached,
but in the condition imported, the productions
must be regarded as manufactures.

The Board of Appraisers has reached the con-
clusion that Collector Stranahan is right in de-
manding duty on the articles as manufactures, on
the theory that a doll is not a doll if the head is
missing.

Giving away a doll with each copy of a new
book is certainly a novel idea. The publishers of
Mrs. C. B. Thurston's "Jingle of a Jap," offers a
Japanese doll with each volume. The book is a

190

CURIOUS CUSTOMS AND TALES

series of colored drawings accompanied by verses
describing the love of a Japanese doll for a haughty
Parisian one. The addition of the real doll will
perhaps shock the conservative readers, but will
offend no child.

One's heart aches when reading about "the
handsomest doll in the world," which had been
made and dressed exactly like her mistress, a young
queen. She was thought to be too fine for every-
day use and so was packed away in a great closet
all by herself. Her life was only made bearable by
the surreptitious visits of the warden's little girl,
who finally succeeded in gaining more liberty for
her.

A Western editor, who feels that the Teddy
Bears are crowding dolls out of existence, writes
as follows:

"It is enough to make a perfect lady of a doll mad. The dear
little girls who have always cried for dolls at Christmas, are this
year crying for Teddy Bears, and dolls are left on the shelves
to cry the paint off their pretty cheeks because of the neglect.
So great is the demand for Teddy Bears, which range in price
from ninety-eight cents to twelve dollars, that the factories can't
keep up the supply, and what makes it still more alarming is that
factories are supplying sweaters, overalls, jackets, and so forth, for
the bears. Will it be as pretty a sight when a little giri mothers
a bear as when she mothered a doll? Well, we guess not. We
are on the side of the dolls, and are ready to preside at an in-
dignation meeting of dolls, baby dolls, boy dolls and lady dolls
at any time they call the meeting. We are not much of a talker,
but we are this much better talker than a doll; we can talk with-
out being punched in the stomach."

191

THE DOLL BOOK

The London Daily Mail recently published the
following interesting paragraph anent dolls:

"Do many women keep their dolls after they have put away
childish things? The fact, elicited by counsel in a wife's petition
for judicial separation, that she still had in her possession a wax
doll and a golliwog, has given rise to the question. Many women,
inquiry shows, do keep at least one doll all their lives through,
one dear favorite wrapped up in lavender, whose rosy cheeks pale
in the seclusion of the sanctuary drawer in which they spent
nearly the whole of their days, with the exception of those
moments in which they are brought forth to be shown to some
little daughter, niece or grandchild."

"Mother's doll looks strangely antiquated to the
childish eyes of little Miss Twentieth Century;
its dress is "funny," its hair is not coiffee as it
ought to be; it's just a dear quaint thing to be
reverenced rather than admired. But to mother
it is the epitome of all that is sweet and far away,
a tangible relic of the golden days of old, which,
joyful though the present may be, are always
aureoled with a halo of special glory.

"Ask any women how it comes to pass that her
dolls still find a place tucked away in her ward-
robe and she will be amazed that anything else
should be expected. It is true that we have no Feast
of Dolls, such as the Japanese enjoy, but for all
that, supposing a muster of dolls of ten, twenty,
thirty, forty and even fifty years old were called,
it would be forthcoming, and the ranks would be
by no means serried."

192

CHAPTER XIX

NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN DOLLS

DOLLS among the North American In-
dians are made of a great variety of
materials and used for a variety of pur-
poses. Clay, rags, knots and bark of
trees and the wood of sacred cottonwood trees are
most commonly used.

Some of them have Indian faces daubed with
long lines of crimson and yellow, while the bodies
of others are decorated with curious symbols in
primary colors, with feather headdresses of various
sorts.

Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, the best known authority
on the Indian, has made a collection of the dolls
used by the Indians, and has written a large and
very interesting book about them — published by
the Bureau of Ethnology, Washington.

One part of the collection is in the Smithsonian
Institute; the other is in the Peabody Museum,
Boston. These dolls are grotesque and hideous in
the extreme. They are symbols of thie various

193

THE DOLL BOOK

Indian gods and are supposed to be prayer-bearers
from the makers to the divinity. They are called
Katcina by the Indians and miscalled god-dolls
by the ignorant.

These are ceremonial dolls and not idols as
supposed by many people. They are part of the
religious beliefs and ceremonials of the Indians
who made and used them mainly for instructing
the children in symbolism.

They are made from the roots of subterranean
branches of the cotton wood, which is sacred to
them, and which is soft enough to be carved with
a stone knife; this implement in olden times was
the Indian's only instrument for cutting, and was
for the most part grotesque.

There are certain festivals among the Indians
of Mexico and Arizona, which occur between
planting time and harvesting, and which always
end with a dance — the snake dance of the Moki's
being one of the weirdest and most mysterious.

During the week's festivities which precede
the dance, certain men of the tribe impersonate
supernatural beings, and are hidden from the
public view most of the time. At the dance they
wear helmets or masks decorated with appropriate
symbols which are supposed to transfigure them
into the deities they represent and honor.

During their sequestration they have been

194

Indian dolls in canoe

Indian doll on toboggan

NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN DOLLS

making dozens of the dolls which represent the
gods of the tribe, viz,, the god of the snow, the god
that eats up the rain clouds, the fire god, the sun
god, and the corn goddess, who is a very indiffer-
ent Ceres, and various wild animals that are used
for food.

Some of them boast a tuft of eagle's feathers,
and are carefully carved; others are crude and
have bodies that are clumsy and awkward, all
suggesting the masked dancers. These dolls are
presented to the children, who play with them as
other children do with dolls that are provided for
them. After the presentation the gods are sup-
posed to return to their homes for the winter
solstice.

When not in use they are hung up until wanted
and the visitor to any Indian habitation is pretty
certain to see a row of these dolls suspended from
the ceiling. Thus the children are taught in early
life the symbolism connected with them.

There are a few made of baked clay, and all are
painted in the gayest of colors, bright red, yellow
and green predominating. Sometimes, but not
often, one is found decorated with a piece of cloth.

Among many Indian tribes of to-day, par-
ticularly those of the Middle West, the dolls take
on a vague likeness to braves and squaws of the
tribe.

195

THE DOLL BOOK

The bodies are made of rags, wood or even
corncob, anything that will make a solid founda-
tion for arms and legs ; eyes, nose, and mouth are
marked with charcoal on a cloth. Beads are occa-
sionally used to make a variety of eyes. They are
dressed in leather very elaborately embroidered,
and with tiny moccasins.

Miss Alice Fletcher replies to Mr. Stanley Hall's
question concerning dolls among the North Ameri-
can Indians: "Among the Indian tribes with
which I am familiar, there is no special treatment
of dolls. All depends upon the particular child's
imagination and imitative powers. In the Omaha
language, the word applied to doll is the same as
that signifying a child with the addition of the
words signifying clay. This composite word has
come into use from the dolls furnished by the
traders, these having composition heads. The
word, however, is now generally applied to all
kinds of dolls, even those made of rags, sticks and
corncobs. Children frequently make clay images
and play with them. I have some curious speci-
mens in my collection."

James Mooney, of the Bureau of Ethnology,
writing of dolls, says: "Among the Mokis and
Pueblo tribes, generally, dolls are commonly
representations of mythological characters and
consequently have some religious significance. I

196

NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN DOLLS

doubt if this be the ease among any other tribes,
unless possibly among the totem-pole tribes of the
Northwest coast. The Kiowas with whom I am
most closely associated, have a religious dread of
making tangible representations of mythological
beings. Little girls frequently carry and dress up
puppies as dolls, and play house with their dolls as
with us."

In Uncle Sam's collection in Washington, there
are tiny Alaskan babies dressed in little coats of
deerskin to protect them from the Arctic winter.
There are others whose garments are made from
the softest sealskin trimmed with beads and edged
with white hair from the leg of the deer.

There are a few two or three inches high, carved
of wood, equally well dressed even to their mittens,
skin caps with ear-laps and their perfectly correct
snowshoes and toboggans. Each one is properly
equipped and accoutered for the life he is supposed
to lead.

Many of the Alaskan dolls are tiny creatures
carved from walrus tusks, with features of black
enamel; some are painted to represent tattooing
and look like totem-poles. Some of them are
carved in a sitting position like certain East Indian
dolls.

197

CHAPTER XX

HOME-MADE DOLLS

y4 LTHOUGH the oldest dolls in the world,

/% exhumed from Egyptian tombs and now
^ ^ resting in the museums of Europe, are
made of bronze, wood and occasionally
rag, the rag-dolls of our grandmother's day un-
doubtedly hold first place in the realm of home-
made dolls.

There is an infinite variety of them, from the rag-
doll with its ink-made features to the doll envelope
stuffed with rags, whose face is artistically painted
with washable colors.

The first ones were crude in the extreme, with
staring features and stiff, unbending arms and legs ;
later ones are more or less jointed, with expressive
faces that will wash. Some of this generation are
so artistic that they often crowd the manufactured
image to the wall.

Jointed elbows and knees were an achievement
in doll making, and once the way of making joints
had been discovered, everyone that made a doll,

198

HOME-MADE DOLLS

marveled at the simplicity of it and wondered why
she herself had not invented it.

The washable paints delighted the heart of
every doll mother, for nothing made the little
manikins seem so real to their owners as to be able
to wash their faces and to have clothes that would
allow the dolls to be dressed and undressed in
imitation of themselves, for the most natural thing
in the world is to have dolly do everything that
Jane and Jennie do.

In these days of mechanical toys, dolls and their
belongings come in for their full share of improve-
ment. But the child is nearer to nature than
ordinary grown-ups, and despite the wonderful
inventions that give the manufactured doll her
house and her toilettes, the benefit of all modem
appliances, children, as a rule, love and cherish an
old and battered rag doll; even though the nursery
is full of modern dolls, the old rag doll misused
to the point of ruination, is always perfect.

"To the little girl who owns her.
Who for short calls her Poll,
For she loves the queer absurdity.
Her old rag doll."

Modern dolls, of which there are now nearly one
thousand varieties, made their appearance in this
country about a century ago. They were mostly
kid covered bodies with artificial heads; the fea-

199

THE DOLL BOOK

tures were painted and the hair was real, but they
did not come up to the standard of the present day.
I Dolls with wax heads, whose faces must be
j washed in butter, had long stiff bodies and were
I without joints. The heads were apt to melt in
' hot weather, and as the children greased them-
selves more than they did their dolls' faces, these
Vv drawbacks soon made them unpopular.

Then came the beginning of the mechanical doll,
with eyes that would open and shut, and a body
that would emit a cry when properly squeezed.
Edison and electricity perfected the walking and
talking doll, though the model was constructed in
the Middle Ages by the great Bishop of Ratisbon.
Although the stockinette doll has passed from
the realm of homemade things into that of a home
industry, still it is possible for any one with a
talent for imitating things to make one.

These dolls are really rag dolls with a covering
of stockinette; the features are quite lifelike in
coloring and shape. They are made by Mrs.
Chase, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and are for
sale in the big shops of New York and Boston,
ranging in price from two to five dollars.

Various people in this country have taken the
making of rag dolls from the realm of homemade
articles into that which might be called home
industry.

200

A young Arab of quality and a donkey boy

Spanish toreador, two dolls from the Basque country, and Black
Virgin of Lyons, France

HOME-MADE DOLLS

The Hastings sisters of central New York make
very fine dolls; they are well shaped and propor-
tioned, and bear little resemblance in this respect
to the rag dolls of home manufacture which are
usually seen.

The dolls are of all sizes, from the baby in arms
to the full-grown young woman, and dressed ac-
cordingly. All sorts of materials are used, so that
there are few duplicates; the cut of the garments
varies with the fashions of the day.

The stockings are made from the best part of
fine old hosiery, and cut to fit perfectly. Kid
gloves furnish the materials for slippers and shoes.
The hats and caps follow a variety of fashions, the
prevailing one for girls and young children being
made of light mull shirred over wire, with broad
strings that tie under the dimple in the chin.

In the Woman's Exchange of Southern cities,
one finds the old Southern Mammy (often with a
white baby in her arms, made with the greatest
exactness, even, to the plaid turban and checked
apron) and two fascinating cotton pickers. Mammy
Jinny and Uncle Joe. One is amazed at the
variety of expressions, and range of age that clever
fingers can make out of the same material.

The "double-ender" is made of rags. Two
bodies are made, one black and one white, just
the same as you would make any doll, except that

201

THE DOLL BOOK

no legs are put on either one. The two bodies are
joined at the extremities. Then the two dolls are
dressed according to the color, the clothing is
arranged so that there is but one outside skirt,
which in each case covers the others. For in-
stance, when the white doll is in evidence, there is
nothing to indicate that there is any other; a
simple turn of the wrist throws the reversible dress
into a new position and lo! a black doll appears.
Another typical Southern rag doll is an impish
little pickaninny with tightly braided hair standing
up like pigtails, who bears on her back a placard
which reads:

"Little Topsy, Flipsey, Flopsey,
Dress of red, curly head,
Little apron white and clean.
Neatest Topsy ever seen."

202

CHAPTER XXI

HOME-MADE DOLLS {continued)

THERE are many variations of the fruit doll,
the making of some of which affords no
end of amusement after dinner while
discussing the fruit course.
One easily made is formed of a round, sym-
metrical apple with four wooden toothpicks or
matches stuck in at the proper angle to represent
arms and legs. Raisins make a fairly good rep-
resentation of feet and blanched almonds with
fingers cut in shape do admirably for hands.

A fifth toothpick is used for a neck on which is
fixed a walnut or a filbert that has been peeled.
If a walnut is used, it makes a capital face if pared
with skill so as to leave the protuberances in the
proper places for the features. Two small black
currants do duty for eyes and a wee slice of a dried
cherry will answer for a mouth. A burnt match is
useful in giving the final touches and a scrap of a
paper napkin will add grotesqueness to a figure
that is already amusing.

203

THE DOLL BOOK

Two oranges, one large and one small, are needed
to make an orange man. Mark the eyes, nose and
mouth with a penknife on the smaller one; add
ears by turning out tiny bits of the peel.

Divide the large orange into halves latitudinally ;
take all the pulp out of one half and turn up the
edges a little all around and you will have the hat
complete.

Turn the other half of the orange on its flat side
to form the body or base; cut off a thin slice at
the top so that the head, from which has been cut
a similar piece at the lower part, will stand squarely
on its shoulders.

A sharp stick thrust through the two holds them
together; failing this, two wooden toothpicks will
answer.

A white scarf about the little man's throat may
be made from a strip of the lining of the hat or
from a colored paper napkin.

Another fruit doll, which is not so perishable, is
made by using a dry fig for the body and a smaller
one for the head. Raisins strung on wire hairpins
make the arms and legs, with one turned up for
feet and hands in each case.

Shoe buttons, set above a pinched-up nose,
serve for eyes, and a thread makes a line for a
mouth.

An endless variety of grotesque figures may be

204

HOME-MADE DOLLS

made by using nuts for heads and marking the
features with pen or pencil.

Queer old faces may be made of bits of dried
apple pinched into shape with well-marked fea-
tures; the shrinkage of the apple leaves lines and
wrinkles that make the face an aged one.

The merry-thought doll affords no end of pleas-
ure and amusement. The wishbones from turkeys,
chickens, ducks and birds offer various sizes for a
large family of these dolls. The head may be
molded of sealing wax, black, white or colored;
here is a chance to show skill and artistic ability.
Again a head may be penciled on the flat surface
of a cork and each end of the wishbone thrust into
or glued on to the other pieces to give the manikin
necessary stability, and make it flat-footed enough
to stand alone unaided.

Doll penwipers are made from a wishbone and
dressed like a ballet dancer. They usually wear
a card around the neck upon which is printed the
following epitaph:

"Once I was a wishbone and grew upon a hen,
Now I am a little slave and made to wipe your pen."

The uniforms of the various sisters of charity,
nurses or any character dress make an interesting
variety.

Mr. and Mrs. John Cotton are a dear old couple
made of gray and white cotton batting. The

205

THE DOLL BOOK

bodies, which are made of white, are shaped and
held in place with a few long stitches. Blue or
black beads serve as eyes and a bit of fine wire
bent into shape and placed on the eyes look very
like spectacles.

The features are worked in with a few embroi-
dery stitches. Any sort of costume may be made
of the gray clothes, and when finished, the two
quaint figures may rest in armchairs made of
cardboard. The whim of the moment may add
any number of articles that seem in keeping with
the old couple.

Their granddaughter is made of a sheet of white
cotton folded to look like a long dress of a baby,
fastened down the front with bows of narrow red
ribbon; the arms are joined with a stitch or two;
shoe buttons or beads are used for eyes and hooks
and eyes for the remaining features. One of the new,
long, straight eyes does for a mouth and the old
round ones for ears. The frill of her cap is bound
with ribbon and a fringe of real hair shades her fore-
head. She is sometimes called a hook-and-eye doll.

The shell work of our grandmother's day is
being revived in a somewhat different fashion. In
the early Victorian period it was the fashion for
visitors at the seashore to gather shells of different
sizes and fix them with glue on frames and boxes
and flat surfaces.

206

HOME-MADE DOLLS

An enterprising Irish lady, who saw in a Guern-
sey cottage a doll dressed in garments of shell
more than a hundred years old, conceived the idea
of making modern dolls of shells and succeeded
so well that she has a large variety of them.

A little thought and ingenuity will enable any
one to carry out the idea. First select the doll to
suit the character desired; you will need some
strong Brussels net and a glue pot, though some
of the prepared tubes of glue or paste may do as
well.

Cut the garment in the desired shape and glue
it to the figure of the doll; then fasten the shell on
in geometrical design or patterns of any sort. Very
elaborate drapery, arms embroidery and jewels are
easily made.

A knight in armor is one of the greatest triumphs,
as the suit of mail lends itself to the shell imitation.
A sea urchin will do for any one who needs red hair
and bits of seaweed might adorn the heads of water
nymphs.

To do this work successfully calls for a great
variety of shells, both as to shape and color, and
any one undertaking it must make it a business of
a summer at the seashore to gather the necessary
material.

For the string doll, one only needs a ball of
Dexter's Cotton, No. 8, or even a ball of candle

207

THE DOLL BOOK

wick, a yard and a half of narrow ribbon and two
shoe buttons.

Cut a stiff piece of cardboard as high as you wish
the doll. Over this wind the ball of cotton, not too
tight, as it must slip off when the doll is partially
made. When enough is wound to make a fluffy
skirt, run two strands underneath a portion of it
at the top of the cardboard to separate it for the
braids that hang down the back.

Then cut the strands at the bottom and tie one
thread tightly around the neck, leaving the sepa-
rated plaits loose; separately twist these for the
arms, cut the desired length, and tie on the ribbon
bracelets. Then arrange and tie the waist line
and finish with the ribbon sash. Set the shoe
buttons on for eyes, and mark the other features
with pen or pencil according to one of the half-tone
illustrations shown in this book, or as your fancy
dictates. A darky doll can be made of black cotton.

A variation of the string doll is made of split
zephyr of black or white; cut two strands a yard
in length and double them three times ; with needle
and silk, fashion the loop securely and leave the
long ends to handle the doll by. Wind silk for the
neck, and after taking out four strands for arms,
wind the waist line; separate four strands for legs
and wind again at ankle; wind the wrists and cut
fingers and toes the desired length.

208

CHAPTER XXII

HOME-MADE DOLLS {continued)

DOLLS made of bottles give about the best
return for the work they cost of any of
the homemade kind. They are easily
put into shape. First, take a bottle of
any size or shape that pleases you, fill it half full
of shot and fasten a doll's head on the top of it.
Make arms out of flesh-colored cardboard and
attach them with glue. Glazed and decorated
tissue paper will make the most effective garments ;
silk and wool materials are more substantial, but
they require more skill in arranging. Artificial jew-
elry, necklaces, pins and bracelets may be freely
used to carry out the character.

These "bottle babies," as they are called, are
very common in Germany. It is the fashion in
that country to make gifts of bottles of wine; to
render them still more welcome, the bottles are
hidden by attractive decorations, which usually take
the form of a well dressed woman in character.
A student with gown and mortar-board cap is

209

THE DOLL BOOK

easily arranged. Any of the European peasant
costumes may be carried out by following pictures
in the magazines or costume books. A nurse, a
Sister of Mercy, a Quaker woman, are brought
forth with very little ingenuity and skill.

The heads may be made with cork if preferred,
with features ingeniously painted; if one is even
a little talented in this direction, a great and inter-
esting variety can be made.

An exhibition of these once seen, showed a bottle
of Dutch liquor wearing the quaint and curious
costume and headdress of a Zealand girl. Bottles
of Malaga and Port masqueraded in the graceful
Spanish costume with lace mantillas. Various Ital-
ian wine bottles were flamboyant in the gay cos-
tumes of the peasant of the Roman Campagna,
while the voluminous costume of a stately German
matron deftly concealed a bottle of Rhine wine.

The straw covers in which wine bottles are packed
may be used in the same way; they are more easily
crushed, but still they will not break if let fall.

All children are familiar with shadow pictures,
but perhaps they have not all seen the shadow
doll, or dolls, as there are several varieties of them.
You will need more dexterity than materials for
these dolls.

First close your hand and then paint two eyes,
and underneath them a nose on the knuckles of

210

HOME-MADE DOLLS

your index and third finger. The thumb pressed
against the index finger and moved up and down
will represent a toothless mouth.

The knuckle of the index finger forms the nose;
above it are the eyes; by draping the face with a
large handkerchief you will see the features of an
old woman.

After a little practice you will be able to move
the thumb up and down — as the lower lip and chin
would move, then you may sing a song in the
wheezy voice of a toothless old woman, and if you
are clever, carry on a conversation, as ventriloquists
do with their puppets.

This doll may be used as part of an evening's
entertainment, if the performance is carried on in
a dim light, or better still, behind a sheet drawn
across the end of the room.

Pretty trifles are fashioned by agile fingers from
bits of crumbs, paper, cardboard and other mere
nothings. Valuable because they show how deft
little fingers may become in the useful amusements
that modern education employs as an introduction
to manual training.

In "Child Life in Colonial Days," Alice Morse
Earle tells of various kinds of flower dolls that
gladdened her youthful days.

A very effective and bilious old lady, or daisy
grandmother, was made by clipping off the rays of

211

THE DOLL BOOK

a field daisy to shape the border or ruffle of a cap,
leaving two long rays for strings, and marking in a
grotesque old face with pen and ink.

"A dusky face, called with childish plainness
of speech, a * nigger-head,' could be made in like
fashion from the black-eyed Susan or yellow daisy,
which now rivals the ox-eye daisy as a pest of New
England fields.

"What black-headed puppet or doll could we
make from the great poppies whose reflexed petals,
were gay scarlet petticoats, and also from the blos-
soms of vari-colored double balsams, with their
frills and flounces.

"The hollyhock, ever ready to render to the
child a new pleasure, could be tied into tiny dolls
with shining satin gowns, true fairies. Families,
nay, tribes of patriarchal size, had the little garden
mother.

"Mertensia, or lung- wort, we termed *pink and
blue ladies.' The lovely blossoms, which so de-
lighted the English naturalist, Wallace, and which
he called * drooping porcelain bluebells,' are shaped
something like a child's straight-waisted, full-
skirted frock. If pins are stuck upright in a
piece of wood, the little blue silken frocks can
be hung over them and the green calyx looks like
a tiny hat.

"A thickly growing cluster of pine needles was

212

HOME-MADE DOLLS

called 'a lady.' When her petticoats were care-
fully trimmed, she could be placed upright on a
sheet of paper and by softly blowing upon it could
be made to dance."

The relation of dolls to child life is of far more
importance than most people imagine; in fact, it
is almost limitless. Few people stop to think
how dolls educate and develop their children. The
child wants a doll, the mother buys it and thinks no
more about it. She little dreams how that doll
will develop in her little girl what might be called
the craft instinct. How, through the desire to have
her dolly look well, she learns to sew, and cut out
and put together the little garments that go to
make a well-dressed doll.

Crude enough these first efforts are, to be sure,
but practice soon makes — if not perfect — at least
creditable work. The child and her dolls live in
a world of their own which we "grown ups" can
never enter, and seldom get a glimpse of, except
when some ingenuous, confiding little one tells us,
as did one child, that she had been all her life, try-
ing not to let her dolly know she was not alive.

The following story is told of a small girl whose
generosity and sympathy caused her to lend her
favorite doll to a playmate who was ill. She was
overheard extemporizing, after she had finished
her usual allowance of prayers: "Dear God, please

213

THE DOLL BOOK

make Frances Hall better, for Jesus' sake, for her
sake, for my sake, Amen."

And who has not smiled, almost with tears in
one's eyes, at the picture of the child and her dollies,
kneeling reverently by the bedside, while the little
damsel says after various other petitions: "And
Lord, I pray that You will just pertend this is my
dollies' talking, 'stead of me."

What the strange fairy sang to Tom and the
babies, about her old doll, is as true to-day as it
was when Kingsley wrote the "Water Babies."

"I once had a sweet little doll,

The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and so white, dears.

And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears;

As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for more than a week, dears.

But I never could find where she lay.

I found my poor little doll, dears.

As I played in the heath one day;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears.

For her paint is all washed away.
And her arm trodden off by the cows, dears.

And her hair not the least bit curled.
But for old sakes' sake she is still, dears.

The prettiest doll in the world."

Who has not seen, and taken pleasure in the sight
of a small child rising to the highest pitch of ecstasy
at the unexpected gift of a long-coveted doll.

Other dolls are made out of poppies. In cer-

214

HOME-MADE DOLLS

tain parts of Hungary, little girls spend much of
their time taking care of large flocks of geese, and
while thus engaged amuse themselves by making
dolls out of flowers, sticks and any other handy
objects.

One illustration in this book shows how a small
Magyar girl will make an exceedingly pretty doll of
a poppy. The whole of the poppy has been utilized
for the purpose, and when more wag needed the
girl's dress was ruthlessly torn into strips to meet
the demand.

The life of all flower dolls is inevitably brief,
but this matters little as a new doll can be made
every day and in a very short time. American
mothers would object to having their children
tear their dresses for doll clothing, but it would
be an easy matter to keep a supply of scraps on
hand for the purpose.

215

CHAPTER XXIII

HOME-MADE DOLLS {continued)

THERE is an infinite variety of paper dolls
ranging from the crude shapes cut for
the amusement of the children half a
century ago to the Spencer walking doll,
which marvelous creature is made entirely of
paper.

The paper dolls which delighted the children
who are grandparents now, might have been called
emergency dolls, for they were as quickly evolved
upon the childish demand for a new doll as was
the doll made from spools from the work-basket,
or the one made of mother's rolling pin wrapped
round with baby's blanket.

White paper, or if this was not at hand, a bit of
newspaper with the white margin for the head,
would make the body, and from another scrap the
single garment that often suflSced for a costume
could be quickly cut.

Quantities of handsome underclothing, with mo-
dish coats and hats, were usually supplied when the
child reached the point of cutting the dolls herself,

216

HOME-MADE DOLLS

and was allowed a few sheets of colored tissue paper
to give variety to the garments.

These dolls were so inexpensive and easily made
that most girls had large families of them ranging
from baby, who was cradled in the depths of a crim-
son or yellow hollyhock blossom, to the grandfather
who represented one's own beloved grandsire.

If, by chance, the stamped frill of white paper
that bordered the ugly, stiff, made-up bouquets of
that period, fell to the lot of a tiny maiden, she
immediately converted it into embroidery for the
dresses and petticoats of her many children.
Failing in this, she made scallops and eyelets in
fine paper with her scissors as she saw her mother
do in cloth, and pasted this on her children's
underwear and was just as happy as if she had had
the stamped paper.

Later the children of that period delighted in
nuns of various orders, some with blue and white
habits and others with black, so mixed that the
nuns themselves would never have been able to
say to which order they belonged. These required
a little more care and ingenuity in making and
were the more satisfactory as they never required
but the one costume. The outline drawings for
these dolls have been made from some pathetic
little figures that have lain for half a century quite
forgotten in an envelope.

217

THE DOLL BOOK

Cut out a stiff piece of white paper in exact
shape of the pattern given — size may be varied to
any extent.

Fold down the center. With black ink paint
the sleeves, shoes, and a narrow border across the
bottom — along the side of the habit also.

Add the rosary and the cross. You will have
Sister Margaret complete.

I was surprised to find that a few years ago an
ingenious Frenchman had utilized the paper Sister
of Mercy as the envelope for a paper of needles.
This was a novelty indeed, but it lasted only a

218

HOME-MADE DOLLS

short while, for it added to the cost without in-
creasing the sale of the needles.

After these simple paper dolls, which were in-
expensive and entirely made at home and by
inexperienced fingers, came the reign of the
"boughten" paper doll, which still continues to a
certain extent.

A doll with its entire wardrobe was printed on a
large sheet of paper, and several of these were sold
singly or in boxes containing half a dozen. It
needed only a pair of sharp scissors to free the doll
and her wardrobe from the superfluous paper and
a bit of paste to add feathers and connect several
joints, and the "boughten" doll was a thing of
beauty and a joy as long as she was tenderly cared
for.

The fashion pages of Godey's Ladies^ Book
furnished many a girl with paper dolls that were
the solace of her childhood. At first, of course,
these papers were too precious to give to the little
ones, for they were used over and over again, be-
cause in those days fashions did not change with
the lightning-like rapidity of to-day.

But when the child did get them, how carefully
she cut the figures out, named and marked them
and treasured them!

The Columbian dolls, made by Miss Marietta
Adams, of Oswego, New York, are most artistic

219

THE DOLL BOOK

home creations. They are made in several sizes
from one foot and a half to three feet.

They are made of rag, that is to say, they are
called rag dolls, although the bodies are made of
the finest sateen and their features are painted in
oil by experts; their faces, hands and feet can be
easily washed and they will last for years. These
dolls are mentioned to show how small a beginning
many a home industry had, and to encourage any
one who has taste and talent in this direction.

Vegetables have been made in faint imitations
of dolls; the broom-stick, potato masher, rolling-
pin, umbrella, pebbles, pieces of wood, glass, clay,
bottles, rags, putty, wax and dozens of other
familiar articles and materials have been made to
do duty as humanity in miniature.

A pillow rolled up hard and smooth with mother's
apron tied round, often makes as satisfactory a
doll as any other. And many a homely one is
better loved and tended than the more expensive
ones that seem to have little or no individuality
about them, as witness the following from a child
who had been insulted by her brother, who called
her doll a bed-post.

"You needn't have called her a bed-post
Sawn oflF grandmother's bed,
That little knot it stands on
Makes the loveliest head.

220

HOME-MADE DOLLS

Go on then and call her a wood stick,
I suppose you must if you must.

But I shall call you a mountain,
Because you were made out of dust.

The more a doll makes a child use its imagi-
nation, the better for the child. To be obliged
to contrive to make her doll herself and then its
clothes, and to learn how to put them on and take
them off, is the best thing that can happen to a
child.

The children of to-day are supplied with me-
chanical dolls and toys, until there is no room for
them to use their imagination.

It is no great wonder that even the smallest chil-
dren weary of their playthings, and are constantly
going to nurse or mother, saying: "What can I do
now.^"

Like Alexander, the little ones want more worlds
to conquer, but loving parents and a mechanical age
have left little for them to discover or to conquer.

Give the children raw materials, rags, cotton,
glue, paints, pencils, nuts, fruits, anything that is
at hand, and let them work out their own salvation.

Besides being a source of amusement and en-
tertainment, mothers and teachers will soon find
that the children are giving themselves a liberal
education. They will learn to sew, to combine
colors, to study effect, to understand proportion;

221

THE DOLL BOOK

they will become courteous and polite, even while
making and playing with homemade dolls.

When they are older and have dolls from foreign
countries, they will get a better understanding of
geography ; history will become real ; they will learn
foreign coinage by sending their dolls abroad, as
well as the customs of different countries.

Costumes will take on a value that fashion never
possessed. The legends and folklore that are con-
nected with the inhabitants of dolldom the world
over will become familiar, and thus will be laid the
foundation of an excellent education.

222

CHAPTER XXIV

HOME-MADE DOLLS (continued)

FROM time immemorial, at least from the
landing of the Pilgrims, who found Indian
corn growing wild, the succulent vegetable
has furnished a variety of materials for the
home manufacture of dolls.

The dry cob makes a firm substantial body and
head, which the Indians of to-day dress in buck-
skin, beads and feathers like their own chiefs, also
a most delightful baby doll swathed about like the
babies of Southern Europe.

The corn-husk dolls are more difficult to achieve.
Occasional specimens were to be found, but it was
not until Miss Nellie Morrison, of Salina, Kansas,
sent a full-grown doll to a corn festival a few years
ago, that Miss Maizie was seen in perfection.

The doll and every article of her fashionable
attire is made from the product of a stalk of corn.
The hair is made of a bunch of fine tassel dried at
the proper time; the trimming of the modish hat
is a cluster of lovely corn blossoms.

223

THE DOLL BOOK

The body is a dried cob, covered with husk,
upon which features are painted with considerable
fidelity. The gown, mantle, and parasol are
cleverly manufactured from smooth husks, which
are susceptible of being folded and sewn into any
desired shape, if they are kept a little moist; when
too dry they become brittle and less manageable.

You must begin to gather material for Miss
Maizie months before you wish to make the doll,
so as to be sure of getting tassels and blossoms at
the right season. You need to exercise judgment
in the selection of nice smooth husks as well; it is
wise to save a quantity of each that you may have
more choice when you come to make up your
material.

For many years the demure Quaker lady in
gown of gray and white kerchief, who often served
as a pin cushion, was the only representative of
the hickory nut family.

A few years ago Mrs. A. H. Blym of Syracuse,
New York, according to a newspaper story,
evolved a new type of hickory nut people. They
are weird and peculiar folk, but so comically like
the person or type they represent that one is irre-
sistibly moved to laughter.

Mrs. Blym soon found that there were infinite
possibilities in the construction of these funny
folk, but Uncle Sam, John Bull, Bismarck, George

224

HOME-MADE DOLLS

Washington, Queen Victoria, Napoleon, the vari-
ous Presidents, Li Hung Chang, Susan B. Anthony,
Joe Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, and the favorite
subjects of the cartoonists were the most popular
and most quickly recognized.

Like many another good thing, the first one was
an accident. Having a hickory nut in her hand one
day, Mrs. Blym was struck by its peculiar resem-
blance to the rugged face of an old man.

Like a flash she fitted a body to it, pinned on
some old clothes, clapped a slouch hat on the head
and put a corncob pipe in his mouth, a fishing
rod in his hand, and there he was, as complete an
old fisherman as ever drew a cod from Gloucester
Bay.

The old fisherman was so popular that other
subjects presented themselves. Success was as-
sured when they became popular as dinner favors.
Having an uncommon degree of inventive faculty,
hickory-nut people multiplied themselves almost
indefinitely.

To make these funny folks, one must have a
choice of nuts, for the success of the doll depends
upon the expression of the nut itself. When once
you begin to look them over, you will be surprised
to discover how the nut, unaided by pen or brush,
resembles a human face.

Having decided upon the character you wish to

225

THE DOLL BOOK

represent and selected your head, you then proceed
to paint the features as true to life as possible. In
addition to the nuts you will need pens, paint, a
tube of paste, a block of India ink, a roll of wire,
rags for stuffing the bodies and scraps of all sorts
for costumes.

If you have any ability in the way of carving,
you can have further variety and more satisfac-
tory results by helping the natural expression of
the nut, by carving the face and head.

The bodies must be made with strips of wire
introduced so that they may be adjusted to any
desired position. Bonnet-wire wrapped around
with strips of cotton, make proper arms and legs.
In arranging the costumes, care must be taken to
have them as correct as possible that the resem-
blance may be quick to strike the eye.

The peanut people are another tribe belonging
to the nut family. John Chinaman, showing his
various occupations in this country, seems to be
the favorite form.

A bag of peanuts, a bit of wire, rags and some
scraps of white and blue cloth, with a few acorn
cups, are all the materials needed for several
specimens.

Select the peanuts with care (a bit of experience
will show you better than any amount of direc-
tions), rather a round full one for the head;

226

L'-"X

HOME-MADE DOLLS

paint the slanting eyes, high cheek bones and
mouth of a Chinese, taking a picture for a model
if you like and attach a long plait of black linen
thread for a queue.

Make the body of rolled rags with pieces of wire
in the arms and legs to make them somewhat
flexible, or use peanuts threaded on wire. Select
bent double peanuts for the feet and straight ones
for the hands. An acorn cup glued to the head
resembles fairly well the inverted wash-bowl hats
worn by the coolies.

If you wish to create a vegetable vender, fasten
the half of a peanut to each end of a short rod or
toothpick and hang across the little man's shoul-
ders. Our laundryman will probably wear the
trousers of civilization, but you will find from a
little observation that he still has enough of the
"heathen Chinee" about him to be picturesque.

Sometimes these odd little figures are set on pen-
wipers or are arranged with toy buckets for matches.
Indeed there are many ways in which they may
be utilized as birthday or holiday gifts, as well as
furnishing employment for restless little fingers.

A Miss Fortune is made of a frame of hairpins,
the two feet stuck into a piece of smooth cork to
make them stand upright. The face is rather flat,
just another piece of smooth cork, with features
marked with brush or pen.

227

THE DOLL BOOK

A black silk skirt and three-cornered silk shawl
with a close bonnet to match completes her cos-
tume; a tiny roll of paper is thrust into the folds
of her shawl; this is supposed to be the talisman
by which she tells your fortunes.

Changes of costumes and size will make a great
variety of these unusual creatures.

An empty spool, three or four Japanese paper
napkins and a clay pipe will, when properly ar-
ranged, make Miss Piper.

Lay two napkins together, cut a circle in the
center large enough to put the pipestem through
and fasten neck to the bowl, tying tightly with a
string.

Put the mouthpiece of the pipe into a spool that
the doll may stand securely. With a brush or
pencil mark a face on the bowl of the pipe.

Fold another napkin three-corner-wise and lay
it over the doll's head to form a sort of hood and
shawl, fastening around the neck with a ribbon
bow and ends.

Curious Chinese dolls with pigtails are made of
an empty egg shell, or a hard-boiled egg,

Mark the slanting eyes and other features with
a pen; make a stiff, round black hat of crinoline
and silk with red tassel and button in the center
of the crown.

A bit of paste will be needed to hold this in

228

HOME-MADE DOLLS

place. When completed, set in the midst of
frilled paper.

A Humpty Dumpty and many other shapes will
be evolved from this. Frilled paper will make an
old woman's face, and a strip of cloth fastened at
the chin is costume enough.

229

CHAPTER XXV

THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE DOLL

G STANLEY HALL and A. Cassowell
Ellis, both of Clark University, Massa-
chusetts, published, a few years ago in
the Pedagogical Seminary, the results of
a curious research which they had made in what
they call a psychogenetic field. Although their
work is in the main somewhat apart from the
object of this book, still one could not be interested
in dolls from any point of view without finding in
their pamphlet, "A Study of Dolls," much food
for reflection.

In the interest of psychology and pedagogy, Mr.
Hall and Mr. Ellis had printed and circulated
among eight hundred teachers and parents, a list
of questions, the answers to which were to furnish
certain data with regard to juvenile feelings, acts
and thoughts toward any object which represented
a baby or a child.

The questions asked were: First, with regard to
the kind of doll, of what material it was made, etc.,

230

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE DOLL

etc. Second, the feeding of dolls, what kind of
food and how given. Third, medicine and dis-
eases were treated, what remedies were given and
how.

The fourth question asked what constituted the
death of a doll, funeral services and burial. The
next one asked for details of psychic acts and
qualities ascribed to dolls. Then information was
wanted with regard to dolls' names, also with
regard to accessories, toilet articles, furnishings,
etc., etc.

What did children think about doll families;
doll discipline, hygiene, and regimen, rewards and
punishments; how dolls are put to sleep.

What is the influence of dolls upon children?
Can taste in dress, tidiness and thoroughness in
making their clothes or other moral qualities be
cultivated.? How does the material of which the
doll is made and the degree of lifelike perfection
react on the child.?

Is there regularity and persistency in the care of
dolls.? Is imagination best stimulated by rude
dolls which can be more freely and roughly used.?
Are children better morally, religiously and socially,
or better prepared for parenthood and domestic life
by them? How can the educational value of dolls
be better brought out?

From the mass of correspondence that ensued,

231

THE DOLL BOOK

Mr. Hall selected and published forty or more
pages of very interesting reading. Many of the
statements must be taken with a grain of salt, for
the childish mind cannot, with logic and reason,
define its impulses, whims and vagrant actions;
while the reminiscences of adults are too often
colored by later impressions or dimmed by the
lapse of time.

However, Mr. Hall's digests, conclusions and
suggestions are of interest and value. He finds
that dolls are made of almost every conceivable
material; also that mud dolls are sometimes sick
at first, but when dry are well; that a shawl doll
had no heart, therefore a ball was put in its folds
so it could live and love ; that colored dolls needed
no clothing because they were "so black nobody
could see."

He also found that the rudest doll has a great
advantage of stimulating the imagination by giving
it more to do, than does the elaboratelv finished
doll. That interest in school books has an im-
portant influence on the doll passion, often elim-
inating it; that only one-twelfth of the dolls made
are boy dolls; that nearly all doll play involves
the assumption of psychic qualities.

Mr. Hall's returns show that dolls have many
diseases and that the common remedies are the
household remedies used by mother. He discovers

232

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE DOLL

that the doll passion seems to be strongest between
the years of seven and ten, and to reach the climax
between eight and nine, etc., etc.

The study of life and human kind is the absorb-
ing interest of the educational thought of to-day.
Every available method of teaching the child how
to acquire the greatest amount of information in
the easiest manner and in the shortest possible time
is used, the object lesson being the most familiar
and perhaps the most effective.

What topic yet proposed for the education of the
young is not in part at least illustrated by doll study .^
A knowledge of history, geography, folklore, tradi-
tion of peoples, their poetry, music, sentiments,
dances, social religious festivals are essential **to
the education of broad minded individuals." How
better can these things be taught to children than
to make object lessons of the manikins that repre-
sent types and classes of various countries.?

Dolls have a social and religious significance;
fundamental principles, which underlie folklore
and traditions, are embodied and set forth by dolls,
which the majority of people look upon simply as
children's toys. The folk games and festivals are
used with most happy effect in settlement work,
making a tangible bond between the old and the
new.

It is a mistake, as some writer has said, to sweep

233

THE DOLL BOOK

aside all the old values of life in favor of modern
virtues, as Americans are prone to do.

Dolls are a never ending source of interest to
children. Put a collection from foreign countries
before them, each one representing a type, an oc-
cupation, a craft; then would geography be as
pictorial as Mother Goose Melodies. The doll
becomes a recognized type, a concrete representa-
tion of a country and its people; under these con-
ditions the children will soon acquire a mass of
information not set down in the text books.

By means of dolls we ^'animate the dead figures
of history"; its study will no longer mean commit-
ting to memory the dates of certain battles and how
many were killed at the time. The dolls give an
historic background and preserve for us the beau-
ties of a life that is passed and gone.

Few children there are who do not love their dolls ;
these passive and unresponsive creatures are by
the imagination of the child endowed with life and
love. The child who does not love dolls has little
or no imagination and will pass through life miss-
ing pleasures and delights on every side. With
children of this sort dolls are never "real" ; and one
questions whether they are possessed of the noblest
and best of all human attributes, the mother instinct.
Such a child would never say to her mother, as did
an indignant little girl: "Mamma, Mamma, you

234

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE DOLL

are sitting on my dollie. What are you thinking
about? I don't sit on your children."

No child loves the doll that is bought already
dressed half so well as she does the one she has
made or looked on while mother or grandmother
made it for her. The doll that is imposed upon
the affections is never able to fill the heart of the
child to the same extent as the far more inferior
one, which she has helped to create and that has
been her very own from its birth.

A writer in the Craftsman says: "The relation
of dolls to child life is of far more importance than
most people imagine; in fact it is almost limitless.
Few people stop to think how dolls educate and de-
velop their children. The child wants a doll, the
mother buys it and thinks no more about it. She
little dreams of how that doll will develop in her
little girl what might be called the "craft instinct."
How, through the desire to have her dolly look well,
she learns to sew, to cut out and put together, the
little garments that go to make a well dressed doll.

Who has not seen, and taken pleasure in seeing,
a small child rise to the highest pitch of ecstacy at
the unexpected gift of a long coveted doll?

Concerning this point of view Professor Hall, in
that admirable paper just alluded to, says: "The
educational value of dolls is enormous, and the pro-
test of this paper is against longer neglect of it. It

235

THE DOLL BOOK

educates the heart and will, even more than the
intellect and to learn how to control and apply it
will be to discover a new instrument in education
of the very highest potency. Every parent and
every teacher who can deal with individuals at
all, should study the doll habits of each child, now
discouraging and repressing, now stimulating by
hint and suggestion.

"There should be somewhere a doll museum,
a doll expert to keep the possibilities of this great
educative instinct steadily in view, and careful ob-
servation upon children of kindergarten, primary
and grammar grades should be instituted as at an
experiment station in order to determine just what
is practicable.

''Children with French dolls incline to practice
their French upon them. Can this tendency be
utilized in teaching a foreign language?

"To make dolls represent heroes in history and
fiction, to have collections illustrating costumes of
different countries, the Eskimo hut, the Indian
tepee, the cowboy's log cabin, to take them on im-
aginary journeys with foreign money, is not merely
to keep children young, cheerful and out of bad
company, but it is to teach geography, history,
morals, nature, etc., in the most objective way.

"Plenty of animals, figures representing different
vocations and trades, poor and rich, etc., would not

236

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF THE DOLL

only be taking the dolls to kindergarten and school,
but would bring rudimentary sociology, ethics and
science, in their most needed and effective form
there, too. Dolls are a good school for children;
here they can practice all they know.

"Children are at a certain period interested to
know what is inside of things, especially dolls ; could
not manikin dolls be made that were dissectible
enough to teach some anatomy.? Would not dolls
and their furnishings be among the best things to
make in manual training schools, and why are dolls
which represent the most original, free and spon-
taneous expression of the play instinct so com-
monly excluded from kindergarten, where they
could aid in teaching almost anything?"

A collection of dolls is not only unique, but pos-
sesses a marked pyschological and physiological
educational value.

The child's interest is at once aroused so that
the impressional mentality is in a most receptive
condition, and the doll becomes, or may be made
of great value as a type of the development of the
human race.

In this utilitarian age of ours, it is well to foster
ideality, and whatever of culture along the lines of
developing the finer nature of children we may
possess should be treasured. It is doubtful if any
one could listen to an exposition of various types

237

THE DOLL BOOK

of dolls and not desire to revert to those days
when doll-play aroused and stimulated the gentle
and better instincts of one's nature.

These types of the children or people of other
lands have a great educational value. A boy or
girl may read and even memorize the distinctive
costumes and features of other peoples, but that is
as nothing compared to the visual delight which a
collection gives. The artistic sense is quickened
by the vivid colorings and adornments of these
types of foreign children. The discriminating
power is stimulated as we contrast the different
styles, so that a better taste and knowledge of tex-
tile fabrics becomes part of the lessons inculcated
by the array of mankind.

238

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Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days

prior to due date

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

QCTi 61988

DEC 1 0 2002

CELEY

LD 21A-50m-4,'59
"[A17248l0)476B

General Library
University of California ^f
Berkeley

UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY

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Full text of "The doll book"

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