DOLLS. The doll, the familiar toy puppet of childhood, is one of the oldest of human institutions. Common among both savage and civilized people, its antiquity is attested by Egyptian, Greek and Roman remains, among which small figures of clay, wood, bone and ivory are identified as dolls from being found in chil dren's graves.
Dolls are among the first inventions of children, having been doubtless improvised in the earliest instances from natural objects such as sticks and stones. Aboriginal America and Japan are the chief sources of information. The child's doll occurs among the American Indians as the image of a deity, made of wood, regarded as sacred and entrusted to the child in its religious instruction. Such dolls, carved to represent the masked dancers who personate the gods, are used to-day throughout the Pueblo area of the United States in New Mexico and Arizona, and in a derived form among the Pomo in California. They are also treated with great re spect by the Pueblos, their sale being forbidden. The dolls of the Keres Indians of Laguna and Cochiti are not elaborately carved or dressed, being flat or rounded billets, identical in form with the prayer sticks employed as ceremonial offerings. The Navajo who occupy the adjacent territory look with superstitious fear upon the Pueblo doll and use a wooden effigy representing a Hopi doll to work evil upon an enemy. Indian mothers among the Chippewa put feathers in the form of a child in the cradle of a dead infant, carrying this about with them and treating it as though living. The Eskimo and northern Indians make children's dolls of bone, ivory and mammoth teeth, and dress them in fur and hide. Small clothed clay dolls are found in ancient Peruvian graves. The beaded buckskin dolls of the Plains and other Indians appear to have been inspired by white influence.
In Japan a primitive type of child's doll consists of a shaved wil low stick with shavings or strings for hair, and paper clothes, an obvious adaptation of the shaved willow sticks formerly set up on the banks of streams as scapegoats at the annual purification cere mony. An actual scapegoat doll, which was dressed and fed and generally treated as though alive, was given to mothers in. old Japan to ward off evil from their children. Women desiring children presented dolls essentially emblems of maternity, at a cer tain shrine. Apart from these "magical" dolls, Japanese girl chil dren have ordinary dolls as well as ceremonial dolls symbolizing the imperial court, which are not played with but exhibited for mally at the girls' festival on May 3. Japanese boys have similar toy images of warriors, which are displayed at their fes tivals on the fif th of March.
In Korea little girls make their own dolls and cut a bamboo pipe stem about 5 in. long, in the top of which they put long grass, salted and made fine like hair.
They never give these a face but sometimes paste a little white powder in its place. They dress the stick in clothes like those worn by women and sometimes put a pin, made by themselves, in the hair. The children's festival in Korea occurs on April 8, celebrated in Japan as the birthday of Buddha. On this occasion, the Koreans make an image of a woman of paper with a rounded base made of clay so that it stands erect. In Japan the correspond ing toy is identified as the Buddhist Damma and is purchased by boys at the festival of a certain temple. One which rises quickly to a vertical position is selected. The face is painted, but instead of eyes, two white paper discs are pasted. This doll is carried home, placed on the "god shelf" and a prayer is said. The god is promised eyes if he answers the prayer, and, this accomplished, black dots are made with ink on the vacant eye discs. In China this toy is made to represent an actor and described as a drunken man.
Among the Hindus and Mohammedans in India, where infant marriage prevails, elaborately dressed dolls with belongings are among the presents given to a girl at marriage. Their use is gen eral throughout the Mohammedan East in spite of the laws of Islam which forbid the representation of the human figure. The nine year old wife of Mohammed, Aischa, brought her dolls when she entered his harem and the Prophet himself is said to have played with them. Mohammedan women in Baghdad are said to see a spirit in every doll that may bring harm to their children. Dolls, therefore, are not given to children as toys, but little girls, following their instincts, make dolls of pillows and blocks of wood. In Persia girls make their dolls of pieces of folded cotton which they clothe and mark with features. Here, too, an image of a doll is, it is said, sometimes placed in a temple at the time of its erec tion to secure its continued welfare.
Dolls are common in Africa, where certain forms are peculiar to certain regions and their use by children as toys is complicated by magical observances. Their general appearance is similar to the carved wooden fetishes to which they seem genetically related. Among the Fingo of the Orange Free State, a girl is given a doll when she becomes of age, which she keeps until she has a child. Then her mother gives her another doll which she keeps until she has a second child. Analogous to the scapegoat dolls of old Japan, these dolls are considered sacred and not parted with.
As regards Christian Europe there is little direct information, although dolls are known to have existed, as has been previously indicated, from Roman time.
It is known also that in earlier centuries those used as play things were connected with images of the saints and were asso ciated with the Christmas festival. A structure representing the scene of the Nativity was erected in churches and private houses, where the Christ child was displayed in its cradle with more or less elaborately costumed figures of the Holy Family, the Magi and their retainers. These reached a point of great elaboration in the 17th and i8th centuries, as shown in the collection in the Bavarian National museum in Munich. And this custom still sur vives in France, Spain, Italy and all other Catholic countries. Toy fairs are held in the streets and purely secular dolls are sold side by side with toy images representing the Holy Infant, the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. Nicholas and St. Christopher and other saints associated with this season.
In Protestant Europe the doll's house seems to have replaced the creche, the krippe and the nacimiento of France, Germany and Spain and is highly developed, as may be seen in the Ger manic National museum in Nurnberg, the South Kensington mu seum in London and in museums of Holland and Belgium.
As regards manufacture of dolls the Netherlands and the Tyrol have long been leading centres of the industry in Europe, while it may be noted further that dolls intended to illustrate seasonal fashions constitute a branch of the industry which came into exist ence much earlier than might be generally supposed. During the World War elaborately costumed dolls of the latter type, made very often by women artists as a means of livelihood in the period of distress, and bought by adults for ornamental purposes, if not as playthings, were produced in large numbers and acquired great popularity as gifts and keepsakes among the well-to-do.