JEAN-PIERRE ROSSIE

STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL TOY RESEARCH CENTRE

STOCKHOLM

to the Saharan and North African children
to  my  children  Tania, Ben , Ruben  and  Pia
to my grandchildren Linde, Camille, Ilona, Thilda, Oona and Alvin


©  2003  Jean-Pierre Rossie 

This book is copyright. Apart from any dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism, review, or as otherwise permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the author or of SITREC

ISBN 91-974811-6-5 

HTML version with 157 figures
Corrected and augmented second edition, first edition 1999

Photo on title page:
Ghrib girls' doll play, Tunisian Sahara, 1975, photo by the author

Stockholm International Toy Research Centre (SITREC)
Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), SE–10044, Stockholm, Sweden.
Telephone: +46 (0)8 790 64 98 
Email: krister@sitrec.kth.se 
Internet: http://www.sitrec.kth.se 

ABSTRACT

In North Africa and the Sahara one finds as well male dolls as female dolls and child dolls. However, the female dolls are largely predominant. With the exception of Morocco, I only have noted the existence of male dolls among the children of families living in the Sahara. These male dolls and female dolls are adults, often bridegrooms and brides. The child dolls represent girls or boys of some age. Baby dolls seem to be seldom.

Most of the time Saharan and North African children make themselves their dolls. However it happens that an adult woman of the family, a female or male artisan make them. So these dolls have, with very few exceptions, been locally made. As more or less all over the world it is the girls who play most with dolls and to a much lesser extent the boys, and then they almost always play with male dolls.

Although the bibliographical documents too rarely talk about this, the dolls described in this book have no meaning except within the children's doll play. Most often this is a doll play for which children of the same family and/or neighborhood come together. In this collective doll play the children use a lot of other toys or objects. Moreover, they may sing, dance, tell riddles or stories and engage in linguistic games during their doll play.

Following all the information I have at my disposal, the children enact in their doll play the life of the adults. In the sphere of the masculine world, the doll becomes a dromedarist, a horseman, a mule driver, a herdsman, a warrior or a notable man. In the sphere of the female world, the doll play mostly refers to playing household, to enacting festivities, especially weddings, and other important reunions, to imitating a pregnancy, childbirth or even a burial. With the exception of the imitation of weddings, whereby the female and male worlds mix, the distinction between female and male activities remains strong in the doll play.

In the creation of the dolls a great variety of natural and waste materials are used. Almost always these materials are of local or domestic origin: mineral material such as stones or clay; animal material such as dried dung, bones, hair, leather and wool; vegetal material such as leaves, reed, branches, dates and ear of maize (Indian Corncob); textile material such as rags and threads; metallic material such as wires and sheets; plastic material such as flasks, threads and ornaments. The part of the material of non social or non domestic origin is insignificant.

The children of each population seem to have held to one or sometimes a few clearly defined types of dolls. As within each community the children play with the same kind of dolls, their similarity facilitates the elaboration and communication of shared signification. This elaboration and communication of shared signification being strengthened by the fact that most of the children make themselves their dolls. This way, the dolls and doll play can be viewed as an efficient communicative tool for keeping up the socio-cultural system.

If one takes into account the whole geographic area an interesting variety can be detected as well in the form, height, face, hair and garments of the dolls. With few exceptions, the dolls are figurative and realistic representations at least in the global appearance and the clothing aspect. Except among the upper classes, the ideal female model is a decently dressed well-fed or even corpulent young woman as symbolized in the female dolls of these regions.

Among many North African and Saharan populations the facial traits are not indicated on local dolls or possibly in a fanciful manner. I only did find facial features among the female dolls of Belbala, Mozabite, Moroccan and Tunisian girls, as well as the Ghrib girls where it is a recent evolution influenced by the school, an evolution that also comes to the foreground in certain Moroccan communities.

The information I could gather since the first French edition of this book in 1993, confirms the use of local or traditional dolls made by girls and only seldom by boys, in the villages of Central and South Morocco. At the same time, their disappearance and replacement by plastic dolls imported from China or elsewhere can be noticed in the towns and small urbanized centers, now or then even in a village. Some information shows that the plastic doll has slowly infiltrated the children's play group and that for some time both types of dolls have coexisted and still coexist. Within this context, the influence of the upper class on the middle and lower class city dwellers and rural residents should be stressed.
 

Volumes of the collections
Saharan and North African Play and Toy Cultures and Cultures Ludiques Sahariennes et Nord-Africaines:

Commented Bibliography on Play, Games and Toys, 1997, 2003
Bibliographie Commentée sur les Jeux et Jouets, 1997, 2003
Children's Dolls and Doll Play, 1999, 2003
Poupées d'Enfants et Jeux de Poupées, 1999, 2003
The Animal in Play, Games and Toys, 2003
L'Animal dans les Jeux et Jouets, 2003

Home Contents (c) 2003, Jean-Pierre Rossie

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