Tipatshimuna 
Description:
Hand sewn child’s doll made from smoked caribou skin, cloth, wool, beads and stuffed with tea.
References:
Angela Andrew. 2000. “Artists Know the Spirits.” In N. Byrne and C. Fouillard (eds.). It’s Like the Legend: Innu Women’s Voices. Charlottetown: Gynery Books. pp.152-155. Lucien M. Turner. 1979[1894]. Indians and Eskimos in the Quebec-Labrador Peninsula. Quebec: Presses COMEDITEX. James W. VanStone. 1982. The Speck Collection of Montagnais Material Culture From the Lower St. Lawrence Drainage, Quebec. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History. Fieldiana, Anthropology New Series No.5. James W. VanStone. 1985. Material Culture of the Davis Inlet and Barren Ground Naskapi: the William Duncan Strong Collection. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History. Fieldiana, Anthropology New Series No.7.
Innu Narrative:
“The women made them. And their children played with them. This is before we had the other dolls. They made these dolls and made moccasins for them too… They stuffed them with tea. People used to make very small dolls and they stuffed them with tea before they left for the country. And while in the country, they would use the tea when they ran out. They would take the tea out of the tea dolls.” Matinen (Rich) Katshinak
“A long time ago, the dolls were dressed like that. A woman was dressed up like that in the past. We dressed up like this when men and women got married and the clothing was made out of caribou hide. The children were bundled up like that too. A man dressed up when he got married. They looked very good. I made so many dolls, and I sold them all away. People asked for them constantly. People in the United States asked for those, too. I sold two there. And in Australia some people asked for two dolls and I sold a few there, too. Tea, that’s why they called them tea dolls – because of the tea stuffed inside the doll. The loose tea doesn’t come out because it is sewn very tight. But it cannot be washed. The tea might come out if the doll gets wet, so the doll has to stay dry. The dolls had to be in the plastic bag to stay dry. I have been making these for a long time now. I was 16 years old when I started making them. I gave them away to children and people used to ask me to make dolls for their children, when I had time on my hands to make them. Someone saw the ones I made and someone mentioned that I was the best tea doll maker. A woman came to my house and asked me if I could make tea dolls, and she would sell them for me. She said I could ask any price for the dolls.” Matinen (Selma) Michelin
“My mother taught me. She used to make tea dolls, but she would make them differently, and not the way they are made today. I taught myself to make them and I remembered the old ways people used to dress up – when we were still trading out of Uashat. I had a book that shows how people used to dress up a long time ago. I copied their clothing including their hats when I made the tea dolls and that’s how I dressed up the dolls that I made. My mother made them different. Old people like my grandmother and my mother didn’t care about the books and they would make any kind of dolls.” Matinen (Selma) Michelin
“These are innishits. This is Innu-carved. This one is a man and the other one is a woman. This is a girl and the other one is a boy. They are called anikuessits (carved dolls).” Pinamen (Rich) Katshinak
Other Info:
For more stories, images and information on the Innu tea doll, visit the exhibits section of this website.
Turner collected a fully-dressed wooden, female doll while working with the Barren ground Innu at Fort Chimo (Kuujjuaq) but provides no information about the making and use of dolls among the Innu (Turner, 1979 [1894}:162-163). The Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago has a doll collected by Frank Speck “made from strips of tanned moose skin stuffed with moss or grass and stitched together with thread. Features are indicated with dark red cotton thread. A hat and dress are made of red wool felt, and strips of blue tape are sewn around the arms and waist. Short lengths of blue and clear seed beads are sewn on the hat. A length of clear beads circles the waist. Short lengths of blue and clear beads strung on purple thread…are attached to the waist” (VanStone, 1982:19). The Field Museum collection also contains six dolls collected by William Duncan Strong in the Davis Inlet-Voisey’s Bay area in 1927-1928, “all of which show considerable signs of age and use; they clearly were not made for the collector” (VanStone, 1985:36). The bodies of the dolls are either made of wood or caribou hide or cotton stuffed with grass. Features are either penciled (in the case of the wooden doll) or stitched with black thread (ibid.:36). The clothing on all of these dolls reflects the period dress of the Barren ground Innu at the time, i.e., caribou hide coats, fur on the outside. None of the dolls are clothed in the “Montagnais” style that is typical of contemporary examples of dolls made by women in Sheshatshiu.
Several women continue to make tea-dolls in Sheshatshiu and Natuashish. In 2005 these women included Matinen (Selma) Michelin, Anishen (Rich) Andrew, Shanut (Pasteen) Gregoire, Mani-Shan (Pasteen) Nui, and An-Pinamen (Gregoire) Pokue. Anishen (Rich) Andrew reported that she designed her dolls herself based on the way her elders used to dress when she was growing up. “Tipatapinukueu (Maki [Apinam] Atuan) an elder here in Sheshatshiu, made the first tea doll I ever saw. There are different stories told about these dolls. Some people say kids used to carry tea dolls in the old days when the Innu travelled long distances in the country. Some say the elders carried the dolls. When the group ran out of tea, only the elders drank tea. I wanted to make this tea doll of the past, but I created my own kind of tea doll in the way I dress them up.”Anishen (Rich) Andrew (2000:153)
Today, the vast majority of Innu tea dolls are made as craft items for sale; they are no longer made for Innu children to play with. In 2004 tea dolls fetched anywhere from $150 to $300, and today are still sold either to individuals or through several craft stores in Newfoundland and Labrador.