Dakota Doll
This doll would be played with by young girls who were learning about how their society worked. They would use it to represent themselves as a married, adult woman, going about her duties as a wife.
She would create a small tipi and other small accessories for her doll. She would then do her best to enlist a young boy to play the part of the husband. This was all part of the initial courtship period for the youngsters.
The doll would try to accurately represent the dress and jewelry of an adult woman in the tribe. You can see the embroidery on the shoulders and lower part of the dress. In her ears she wears extremely long earrings - in real life these would be long trails of shells. The full outfit of a Dakota woman could easily be over 40 pounds.
This specific doll is from the Dakota tribe. It can be seen at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
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