doll

doll

doll

9: RECREATIONAL ARTIFACTS

TOY:

Seminole

Multicolored female doll with striped clothing.

Multicolored female doll with striped clothing. Head is round with conical body, both made of palmetto fiber bark, hand sewn with a single strand of brown embroidery floss, and stuffed with unknown fiber. The face is embroidered with a straight red mouth and black and white eyes, using multiple strands of embroidery floss. Black cloth, attached to a stiff form, (possibly cardboard), represents an elaborate mid twentieth century Seminole women’s hairstyle. A strand of beads is wound around the neck three times, made of blue, red, white, and one green bead in a seemingly random pattern. The doll is dressed in a skirt and cape made of cotton. From the bottom, the skirt is made of a strip of bright yellow commercially woven fabric, with a narrow appliquéd strip sewn with matching thread, followed by a strip of aqua blue fabric with an appliquéd narrow strip of navy blue sewn with matching thread. The top of the skirt is finished with a waistband of medium aqua blue with an unfinished top edge. From the bottom the cape is made of a strip of orange with an appliquéd narrow strip of pink sewn with matching thread, followed by a wider strip of bright blue with an appliquéd narrow strip of mustard yellow sewn with matching thread. The cape is finished with a black neck band with a folded over top and bottom edge. All narrow strips are handmade folded tape not cut on the bias(?) All interior seams are unfinished. The waistband band and neck band are hand sewn closed with white thread. The palmetto fiber body has no arms and legs. The bottom has hard adhesive reside with some kind of fiber, such as brown paper, stuck to it. It appears the doll may gave been glued to something to keep it upright.

created for sale to tourists, outsiders /
entertainment artifact /
decorative

5 1/4” T

4” W

3” D

1951 1955 own/col

fiber(palmetto bark) cloth(cotton) bead(glass) cardboard?

sewn(machine)(hand)woven(commercial) dyed(commercial)

costumed bead embroid applique

Seminole

V GOOD(residue)

Davis, Hilda J. -donation

Davis, Hilda J. anthropological/ethnological
field

1984-06-0020

object

FL

USA

NA

2008 DEAC REV: Rachel Biars; 2010 RECAT: Jodine Perkins

Polyester not available until 1953, so it seems unlikely this doll from the 1950’s has cotton-poly blend fabric.

Downs, Dorothy. 1995. Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccousulcee Indians. p. 211-219. Gainesville: University Press of Florida (on Seminole Dolls)

Synthetic Fiber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/synthetic_fiber

Indiana University/Mathers Museum