Mary Billie sewing on the bottom of the Seminole doll she is making - Big Cypress Reservation, Florida

Title

• Mary Billie sewing on the bottom of the Seminole doll she is making - Big Cypress Reservation, Florida

Image Number

• FS80322A

Year

• 1980

Date Note

• Photographed on July 15, 1980.

Series Title

• General: Folklife Collection.
• Specific: Folklife Collection Seminole Slide/Tape Project (Palmetto Dolls)

General Note

• Accompanying note: "Mary stuffs the head with pieces of palmetto fiber. 'If she uses something else like cotton, the needle won't go through that cotton. So she uses that palmetto fiber. Then she would put the palmetto fibers inside the doll to make it stand.'"



General Note

• "Mary often saves time by stuffing the bodies with cotton instead of fiber, 'since the body doesn't need much sewing.'"



General Note

• "'After she finishes that, I guess she puts that cardboard and wraps that palmetto around it and put[s] it on the bottom so stuff would not come out when it stands. She'll cut that cardboard out and make a circle big enough where she stuffed it, uh, cotton. And then she'll take that palmetto fiber and put it around that cardboard where she make that circle, cut that circle. And then she'll, uh, put it on the bottom of that doll and sew it up so it can stand straight. Then she'll make the eyes for it and the mouth.'"



General Note

• Mary B. Billie has been a dollmaker since she was 17. She learned the skill by watching her mother, who had learned it from Mary's grandmother.

Photographer/Personal Author

• Dyen, Doris J., Collector.

Physical Description

• 1 slide - col.

Subject Term

• Palmetto and palm crafts
• Seminole dolls
• Root dolls
• Craft
• Tourist art
• Domestic arts
• Decorative arts
• Art
• Dolls
• Toys
• Hand
• Sewing
• Material culture
• Seminole Indians--Material culture
• Doll industry
• Toymakers
• Artisans
• Dollmaking
• Dollmakers

Geographic Term

• Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation (Fla.)

Personal Subject

• Billie, Mary B., 1934-2003.

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