Stories that dolls tell

A few years ago, I was at Ningyocho, Tokyo’s old neighbourhood, on a walking tour. As I stepped out of the metro station, I as greeted by a watch tower with puppets depicting ways of life during the Edo era. Coincidentally, I was visiting the doll town (Ningyo means doll and cho means area in Japanese) just as Karnataka was celebrating Dasara. 

In Karnataka and many parts of South India, brides are given a pair of wooden dolls known as pattada bombe/gombe (doll). These dolls are a key part of the Dasara doll arrangement in traditional homes. Symbolic of Mysuru’s royal tradition, the wooden dolls represent the king and his queen. 

Similarly, Japan celebrates of Hinamatsuri, or Doll Festival, on March 3 every year. The arrangement of dolls is similar to the gombe display in many parts of South India. The Japanese too have a set of Imperial dolls (called dairi-bina) placed on the top tier of the arrangement. Girls are given this set of dolls before their first Hinamatsuri, and the practice is discontinued once girls turn 10. The Japanese also celebrate Boys’ Day on May 5, for which warrior dolls are specially made. The Edo period (1603 -1868) was a time of economic and cultural progress in Japan, and the arts including doll making flourished.

For centuries, humankind has made and collected dolls. From the Indus Valley civilisation to the Egyptian, Greek and Roman periods, dolls have been an integral to every civilisation and culture. They have served as both ritual objects and decorative pieces.

The Egyptians placed shabti (ushabti or shawabti) dolls in graves so the dead would find company in their journey into the ‘afterlife’. 

Beyond their ceremonial and ritualistic significance, dolls have been cherished playthings for children across millennia.

In the 18th century, the making of wooden Dutch dolls inspired the rhyme: The children of England take pleasure in breaking / What the children of Holland take pleasure in making.

Closer home, Channapatna dolls, made of lacquer, have delighted generations of children. The 18th-century Mysuru ruler, Tipu Sultan, invited artisans from (then) Persia to share their skills with local artisans, paving the way to a flourishing toy-making industry in Channapatna. In the early 20th century, local artisan Bawas Miyan is said to have visited Japan to learn techniques of toy-making.

Making dolls, like any other art form, is creation – the core of life and existence. Collecting dolls harks back to something primordial in all of us, the human instinct to gather and safeguard. 

During Dasara, doll collectors across Mysuru and other parts of Karnataka open their homes and institutions for displays of gombe, often adding new sets with a contemporary flair each year. The themes of these doll arrangements often reflect contemporary concerns such as climate change. For instance, the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Bengaluru this year features a Constitution-themed doll collection. The founding mothers of the Constitution found a place in the display. 

Dolls have always mirrored the socio-economic and cultural trends, with each change in the material used for doll making and the clothes used to deck them reflecting life at the time they were crafted. According to Antonia Fraser’s book, Dolls, the French Revolution influenced how fashion dolls, also called Pandora dolls, were dressed. The revolution led to several aristocratic women leaving to London without a penny and entering the labour market as embroideresses. This led to a flood of embroidered, handmade garments for fashion dolls of the era. 

Another example is that of automation in dolls, which grew in popularity in the 18th century. The book mentions an “automatic group made for Tippoo Sahib, the highly Anglophobe Sultan of Mysore, which consisted of a life-sized tiger rushing to devour an Englishman in uniform!” Another example in the book is the talking doll that was brought out by Thomas Edison adapting a “phonograph with round discs to go inside a doll.”

The ubiquitous teddy bear is a favourite soft toy for generations of children but have you thought about its backstory? According to Antonia Fraser, it has its roots in a cartoon published in the Washington Times (1903). The cartoon was inspired by a newspaper picture of the then US President Teddy Roosevelt with a small brown bear in the Rocky Mountains.

The cartoon inspired Morris Michtom, the founder of Ideal Toy Corporation, who sought the President’s approval to design a “Teddy’s bear’. “I don’t think my name is worth much to the toy bear cub business, but you are welcome to use it,” the President is said to have responded. And thus, we see millions of Teddy’s bears world over. 

So, the next time you look at a doll, look closely and listen to all the stories they tell. 

(The author is a Bengaluru-based independent journalist and content writer.)