Dolls

This doll is made of mud. A large proportion of its head is composed of mud, hay and various other natural materials that would have been available to the maker when it was produced. The doll comes from Africa, and is around 100 years old. This type of doll would have been produced for the tourist trade, as a type of ‘typical’ local product that would have appealed to tourists who wished to take home something that reminded them of the local culture. However, if you look closely at the doll, you will see that it is covered in a range of objects that mark it out as different from other ‘tourist dolls’. Amongst some of the objects attached to the doll are Cowrie Shells, which were used as a kind of money in some African countries before the introduction of metal money in around 100AD. The doll also wears metal and glass beads, which may have been added to the doll when it arrived in this country, as the colours that have been used are not very typical of this kind of doll. The doll is very sparsely dressed. The skirt she wears is a type of paisley-printed muslin which is not the kind of material African tribeswomen would have worn during this time.

In Africa, there are many hundreds of different tribes, all of whom observe a variety of rituals and traditions. A lot of these tribes have their own distinct dress codes and fashions, such as the Masai in Northern Africa, whose dress is highly colourful and reflects the different materials and dyes available to them. Often, tribal dress is stereotyped in Western society as it is not completely understood. Sometimes, it can look like a parody of what it is meant to be. This African Mud Doll is from the nineteenth century. During this time, there was a lot of exploration of foreign countries by British people, who wanted to learn more about the different countries within the British Empire. This resulted in a big trade for tourist goods, such as this doll. If you look carefully, you will see the way that the doll has been made to look like a real person. The face is not very realistic, but the clothes are. They are made out of miniature versions of all of the usual materials, such as shells, hessian and weaved cotton.

In Britain today, very few people wear clothes such as this- they would be impractical for the cold climate and would not have the same cultural significance as they do in Africa. However, people today still dress as though in a ‘tribe’- people wear the same bandanas to indicate they are part of a group, some wear badges to show their allegiance to one movement, it all goes towards a feeling of cultural identity that is similar to that of the tribes in Africa.

Do you think that the doll is a stereotype of an African woman? Do you think that it looks like a real person? Chantelle Warren from Wolverhampton said that the doll was just a piece of tourist tat, “It just looks like a stereotypical African person. It’s not sympathetic or true-to-life, it’s almost like a caricature of a black woman, and not a person at all.” Do you agree with this?