[Sca-cooks] Corn dollies.

[Aruvqan]

On 5/3/2014 10:27 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:
>
> Although I'm most familiar with corn dollies being made in North America and of maize leaves, they probably had a predecessor. Was that just carved wooden dolls? Or perhaps wheat or other grain leaves/waste?
>
>
I have to think [and this is pulled right out of my arse, honestly] that 
corn dollies originated in handsfull of grasses and the straw found 
after harvest being twisted into little people to amuse small kids that 
are being tended by the sides of fields while the harvest is going on. 
Perhaps out of the scattered stalks of wheat or whatever grain being 
gleaned by the aunties and grannies asked with watching them.

People make twists of stalks to bind sheaves when manually harvesting 
grains, and it makes perfect sense to me for whomever is tending a bunch 
of kids to make impromptu toys to amuse them.

They also could have been made originally to replace live sacrifices, to 
be made, dressed and thrown into harvest festival fires. It is not a 
great jump from this:
http://www.drieddecor.com/images/medium/products/wheat-bundle-1lb_MED.jpg

Without the grain heads, to being dressed in fabric scraps and used as a 
doll for kids to play with.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_8hfyP3kULww/TGHOgYTq-cI/AAAAAAAAALk/SwpsiOzBobg/s1600/IMG_0116.jpg

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