A Back to Nature ALPHABET By Linda Holderbaum (All dolls from the author's collection unless noted) L 14 SUMMER 2021 ong, long before toy stores, a child who wanted a doll either made it on their own or an adult constructed it. From what? From whatever was handy-fiber, nuts, grass and other natural materials. Created for play or sometimes religious needs, people from all parts of our world often used the same materials in their own unique and clever ways. Most of these early dolls no longer exist because of the nature of the material they were made of. However, the method of construction for many of them have a tradition that has been passed down through generations of doll makers and is evident in some of the souvenir dolls you can find today. Other dolls made of natural materials may not have a long tradition but were hand made for the souvenir trade. Often viewed as " odd, " these dolls are sometimes classified as folk type or fall into the " novelty " category of doll collecting. Laughed at sometimes for their strange construction they certainly do bring questions to mind such as: how did they do that? Or a better question might be: why did they do that?