Japanese dolls under the Christmas tree

Japanese dolls: Christmas and New Year's greetings

What could Santa have to do with a little Japanese doll? Everything, thanks to Thomas Nast's 1881 engraving for Harper's Weekly Magazine. It was a bit odd that Nast's Santa was carrying a Japanese doll-such dolls were probably only on the market in a few parts of the U.S., though they were probably both trendy and exotic, thanks to the interest in Japanese wares from the 1876 Columbian exposition, where the Japanese display was a big hit.⁽¹⁾ It's even more odd, I think, that Nast shows the doll with no clothes on. I think that he must have been interested in the way the doll is constructed, with its sweet face, odd hairstyle, and floppy combination of floating and twisting joints. Western artists would enjoy portraying this type of doll for many decades to come.




1881, Thomas Nast, Santa (Harper's Magazine)

An odd example of a Christmas gift is the Story of Two Little Japs.⁽³⁾ This picture book is devoted to the misadventures of two Japanese children with the snowshoes, sled, skates, and toboggan they receive for Christmas and try out in the snow and ice of a Canadian winter. The author seems to think that they have no idea how to Japan has a tropical climate-a typical confusion for the mid 19th century in North America. The artist, however, may well have used Japanese dolls as models, since the confused hairstyle and odd floppiness of the limbs suggest dolls more than boys.

An image from the book was used for a Christmas card. (Right).

Japanese dolls were not high in the rankings of dolls a little girl might want to find under the tree on Christmas morning, though they seem to have gotten a lot of affection. Dolls are featured in an 1904 Vantine's Oriental Department Store ad, and they appear as stocking stuffers in some Christmas cards, along with teddy bears and Golliwogs. Such dolls were sturdier and perhaps lent themselves more to imaginative play than the expensive ceramic doll in a silk dress and curled wig, though the latter would be more exciting. Like Raggedy Ann later, they could have some adventures, perhaps being "drowned"⁽⁵⁾ or menaced by a dog, and survive.


1914, Vantine's ad in National Geographic. Click to see the whole ad. A small doll like this is sometimes shown peeping out of a Christmas stocking.	Annie Benson Muller, cover of Modern Priscilla magazine, December 1922. Artists showing children at Christmas-time were glad to put a brightly kimono'd Japanese doll in the arms of a little girl. For more such pictures, see the Christmas and New Years Postcards page.

As a final note, consider Christmas in Japan: Saburo's Reward. In this story, a little Japanese boy resolves to sell his collection Musha-Ningyo to visiting Americans, to help his father pay his debts at the New Year. The kindly Americans find a way for him to earn the money instead-and he does give his Empress Jingo, "Japan's Boadicea," to the American girl, who likes her story "more than those of the great heroes." Interestingly, though the Americans are involved with a Christian mission, they are the ones who learn about courage, generosity, and beauty of spirit from little Saburo; and the Japanese New Year's festival (along with Hina Matsuri and Boys' Day) are described in more detail than Christmas.

Saburo's Reward: A Christmas in Japan, by Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy., illus. Diantha W. Horne (Boston: Dana Estes, 1909): the Girls' Day dolls and Boys' Day dolls in the kura (go-down or storage building). The author does not seem to have a clear idea of what the hina dolls should be like "("Many of them were very old and their costumes illustrated various periods of national history. She was especially fond of her bridedoll, who had a most wonderful trousseau packed in a tiny lacquer chest," p. 19), and the illustrator seems to have grouped a few dolls that were handy. Saburo's favorite among his own dolls is a model of a general purchased for him by his father after they saw the real man.

NOTES

1. See N. Harris, "All the world a melting pot? Japan at American fairs, 1876-1904.," in Mutual Images: Essays in American-Japanese relations., Akira Iriye,. ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975).

3. Let me note that "Jap" was a slangy and condescending but often affectionate term for the Japanese, especially for children.

4. Certainly with the Golliwogs, the cuddly and cheerful black knit dolls representing minstrel entertainers, we are touching again on racism on the doll shelf. Unlike Dinah or Belinda dolls, however, which represent black servants, the Golly seems to have led a pretty liberated life in the early storybooks.

5. I mention this because there are several stories and pictures in which Japanese dolls get wet and come out none the worse. This is improbable, given the soluble materials the dolls are made of, but it seems to reflect the interest in Japanese bathing habits.