More Ladies Babies and Girls

Last summer I posted a few images of Inuit Dolls from Polar Canada, mostly from a book by Anaoyok Alookee & Eva Strickler, available here and here.

Some new research started toward a residency of focused time on them, so I wanted to post a few more images for you (I believe the above are of collector dolls as nearly all play dolls are faceless).

Top: a girl and baby doll from Baffin Island, pre-1976, caribou fur, seal fur, sinew, thread, beads

Middle: Inuit doll from ?, early 1900's

Bottom: a contemporary doll trimmed with Arctic hare fur (ikaliq)

I'm drawn to the fact that they are some of the only ethnographic dolls that are neither mass produced or culturally debased, with such sophisticated and diverse forms in their function and materiality that it's possible to read tribal differences, shamanic beliefs and legends in them. The women who construct them have continued to use every available material: furs, hides, grasses, fabric, beads, hair, teeth ...
I hope to meet some of them, work with them a bit.

a good friday
(and good friday's next week)