History of Dolls Episode 1: Corn Dollies
the Collector's History of Dolls starts off with this striking image, which is, according to the caption, "The Corn Maiden of Oats, found in all primitive communities." This one is 29 inches high, and Montenegran.
we have never seen a doll like this, but we think it is quite wonderful. the grain (oats?) that forms its hair in particular makes it look like a magical tree lady.
even though the picture is at the beginning of chapter one: the first dolls, we have to skip to nearly the end of the chapter for any context about it, in the section about "primitive dolls".
King comments that such dolls are a good investment to the collector, because "many of these dolls can only have a limited period in which they can continue to be made in an indigenous manner." as Westernization spreads, "the native doll will be adapted to suit the European taste," and likely adopt "plastic eyes and nylon wigs".
she goes on to compare "primitive" dolls (which are magic), to "European" dolls (which are mostly only toys for children). In the very next paragraph, she finally tells us about the Corn Dolls, which are primitive dolls... that are also European. often, in European "peasant" communities, corn is fashioned into a human figure, to celebrate the harvest. examples are the Whalton Kern Babby and the Ivy Girl of Kent.
so the corn dollies are objects of magic and ritual, made by the primitive peoples of England and the rest of Europe.
anyway, that is my paraphrase of the text below:
a note on King's use of the word "primitive": King seems to define the "primitive doll" more as style of doll that is handmade from natural materials and has a Purpose beyond being the plaything of a child. but connects these "primitive dolls" with this concept of "primitive peoples/races/communities", which can seemingly include her own contemporary countrymen. this book is from the 70s. folk/handmade dolls are still categorized as "primitive" today, though my linked search seems to show mostly American rag dolls, which i doubt were used much for ritual or magic. anyway i am a little uncomfortable with King's usage of this word but it could be worse.
anyway, onto the corn dolls. in case you had forgotten (we certainly did) corn does not always mean maize, it can refer to any grain. and in spite of King's claim that "all primitive communities" have a "Corn Maiden of Oats" in the caption at the beginning of the chapter, it seems likes it's really a mostly European thing and most of them don't call it that. so it took some searching to find more context.
we finally found this wikipedia article about corn dollies, where you can see color photos in different styles, some more abstract, less human in figure.
also, here's a kern baby from Whalton, Northumberland. This photo was taken by Sir Benjamin Stone in 1902.
it's not clear from my cursory research how long the people of Whalton they kept up the tradition after this photo was taken, but we know it had stopped by 2017, when an artist saw the photo and decided to make a 10 foot tall version, to reawaken people's interest in it.
i'm not sure how big a typical kern baby would be, but i understand it would be made from the last harvested sheaf of corn. here is a guy holding up a sheaf of corn for a different harvest tradition, crying the neck. so maybe these kern babies were that big.
...that's a big baby.
the Yule Goat that people try to burn every year might also be a kind of corn dolly? we had at least heard of that one. it is notorious.
anyway... that is about all i have to say on corn dollies. it is interesting to consider whether they count as Dolls, at least by my own personal standard. they are dolls in the sense that they are objects of ritual and magic, and especially the ones shaped like people. but are they toys? is there an element of "play" to them? does that make them a different category of thing? (perhaps not to a collector, who has different concerns.)
King speculates elsewhere that a child *would* have played with anything resembling a doll if it could get its hands on it, so by her standards they count as dolls.
we will ponder these questions again when we talk about fertility dolls, which also feature in chapter one: the first dolls. but there's quite a lot else in chapter one and we're not sure what we'll cover next.
well we hope you have enjoyed this and that we will see you in the next episode! which we hope that we will write someday.
