Shelton Male Doll

Item's Choctaw Name: Hattak Holba Isht Washoha

Item's English Name: Doll

Age: 1880s

Material: Skin made from burlap-like material. Moccasins, leggings, breechcloth, back covering, shot pouch, and strap made of elk buckskin. Hair made from black thread. Knit shirt and felt covering. Wooden gun. Cotton thread.

Dimensions: Height = 35 cm.

Origin: This is one of two dolls in the Shelton collection that belonged to Lena McCurtain-More (Daughter of Chief Green McCurtain), born in 1881. Her mother, Katy McCurtain made one of these dolls. One of her aunts, possibly Nancy Roebuck (maiden name unknown), made the other.

Notes:

The doll's body is made from stuffed cloth. Many of its accompanying pieces are made from soft, braintan elk hide that appears to have been wet-scraped. The back of the body is covered in a wrap made of the same material that has been heavily embroidered. This is invisible unless the torso covering is lifted. The leggings were created by wrapping a piece of leather around each leg so that the leather at the front overlapped the leather from the back side of the leg. A running stitch was used to attach the material, and the excess from the front side was cut into fringe. The moccasins are pucker-toed, with the seam on the bottom, perhaps to accommodate the embroidery on their top surfaces. Features of the face were made 3-dimensional with the aid of stitches to bunch up the material where desired. Coloration on the face was done with embroidery. The wood for the gun has been milled.

This doll is very similar to 6 others in the collections of the Oklahoma Historical Society.