DOLL

ca.1890-1910

Gift of O. C. & Edith Johnson, and Don & Betty Johnson of Wolf Point, MT

2013.20.07

While many of the particulars surrounding the maker and original owner of this Assiniboine doll have, unfortunately, been lost to time, she still conveys important messages about Montana's past. The detail with which she has been outfitted-down to her beaded awl case, knife sheaf, and umbilical pouch-indicate the importance of doll to her maker. As a result of the care taken with these details, the doll's clothing is an authentic rendering of the way in which Assiniboine women dressed at the turn of the twentieth century. The materials of which she is made-cotton and silk cloth, brass studs, glass beads, leather, straw, and wood-indicate the supplies that were available in in the sparsely settled region of northeast Montana. And the doll's known history speaks to the role that trade with non-Indians played in reservation life. In this case the maker likely traded the doll for supplies with the donor's grandparents O. C. and Edith Worthy Johnson who operated the "Fad," the first general store in Wolf Point, that served the nearby Fort Peck and Fort Belknap Reservations.

Assiniboine