7446. Make a cornhusk doll

 Every year the area libraries do a Fox Cities Reads book where all the area libraries and schools read the same book and then there are author visits. This year they picked two books There There by Tommy Orange and Apple in the Middle by Dawn Quigley. Both books were written by Native Americans which was their focus this year. As part of the Fox Cities Reads, they sponsored a cornhusk doll project at several libraries. Kimberly had one during the day and Little Chute had one at night.

I opted to go to the one in Little Chute. It stated at 6 pm and was limited to 30 people. I was worried that it was going to fill up quickly so I got there about 5:45 and was the second person there. We had a total of 6 people which was great since we were able to get a lot of one on one help.

Yntlekalau McLester, who is part of the Oneida Tribe, walked us through the steps of making a corn husk doll. We had directions and on paper they looked fairly straight forward. In reality it was as easy as the directions made it seem.

You start by layering 4 corn husks on top of each other (3 if you don't want hair) and tie them at the top with sinew. Cornhusks must be wet for this to work.

Leaving one piece separate for the hair make a head about an inch or two from the top. I messed up the order of my husks and my hair is longer than I wanted it.

If you want fancy arms, you can brand 3 husks together to make arms. You would do this twice.. one for each arm and then tie them together.

You then push them up under the head and tie it off under the arms to make a chest.

Then you take two husks and criss cross them off the chest to hide the strings and arms. 

To make hair, you pull your husk apart to get a Medusa look. Then braid it.

You add one final corn husks around the middle for a skirt. And hopefully it stands up.

Mine stood for a few hours and then would fall down. I tried to re-soak the skirt and it still falls down. I think my skirt is too long and wide to properly stand. 

While we made our dolls, we learned the history behind the corn husk doll. There are two stories on why they don't have faces. Basically an Indian Maidan thought herself to be beautiful and it got her in trouble. 

It was a fun class. I am glad that the libraries offered this event. I wish more people would shown up. Hopefully I will get to hear Tommy Orange speak in May. I can't wait to see what next year's Fox Cities Reads is and what ancillary events they have to go with it.