Some students at the Lawton Public Schools Life Ready Center are putting their worries to bed, thanks to a project spearheaded by Library Media Specialist Maureen DuRant.
In observance of Hispanic Heritage Month, DuRant offered students the opportunity to make worry dolls. According to legend, worry dolls originated in the Mayan areas of Guatemala and Mexico. Tradition says that parents gave the small dolls to their children, who put them under their pillow at night. The Mayan Princess Ixmucane, who had special powers from the Sun god, would solve their problems and take away their worries while they slept. When the children woke up, their worries would be gone.
While DuRant isn’t sure if the worry dolls really work, she wanted to offer students a project. Students are free to interpret the legend in their own way, she said. She has provided the materials for the dolls: pipe cleaners, lace, ribbon, rick-rack, beads and embroidery floss. DuRant said about a dozen students had stopped by the library to make a doll or two or three.
Clementine Barela was one of five students making the dolls one morning. Barela said she was familiar with the dolls and with the legend because she used to have dolls. She said she doesn’t know where the dolls came from, but her grandfather was a pilot who traveled a lot. She said the dolls were kept on a shelf in a cabinet in a little box and she was allowed to put them under her pillow.
“They were very tiny,” she said. She isn’t sure if they took away her worries though. “I was a curious kid, so I asked about them. I don’t feel like I had many worries, so I guess they worked.”
Julia Ford, who was making a doll, also was familiar with them and with the legend. She said her grandmother used to get them for her grandchildren.
“I got a few when I was little. Nana taught us what they were for,” Ford said. “They disappeared from under my pillow. I don’t know what happened to them. I would play with them. I think that’s why they went missing so much.”
While each student uses their creativity to create their own unique doll, the materials are the same. A pipe cleaner is fashioned into the body and twisted into arms and legs. A wooden bead serves as the head. From there, a variety of materials may be used to clothe the dolls, including adding hair.
Joselynn Ramirez was making her fourth doll.
“I came in the library, saw this and decided to make one,” she said, adding she was not familiar with the legend. She was making this doll pink and purple, after making a pink one and a blue one and giving them to family members.
Ramirez enticed her cousin, Sophia Cossio, into making a doll also. Cossio said she was not familiar with the dolls or the legend, but she loves to collect trinkets.
After making the dolls’ bodies, each student set about clothing them. Several decided to put faces on theirs to make them more friendly looking, saying they looked creepy without a face. Ford decided to give her doll eyebrows and glasses.
As to the legend, the students debated its veracity. They decided it wouldn’t hurt to put the dolls under their pillows, especially at test time, while Cossio wondered if you needed to believe in the legend in order for it to work.
“I think it’s pretty cool. That would be a nice thing to believe in,” Ramirez said.
“I think it’s a nice thought for kids. It’s a way to cope,” said Natalie Fassett.