Miniatures have been an important feature of northeastern souvenir art since the earliest contacts between Indians and colonists. Both Indians and non-Indians attach specific value to the miniature which makes it suitable as a precious and universal gift. Miniaturization is a basic principle in indigenous religion where small wooden figurines occur regularly in medicine bundles. Sometimes these figurines were dressed with ornaments and clothing, representing a downscale person. Miniatures of various objects such as war clubs, canoes and rattles were kept in medicine bundles as well. Pre-contact production of miniatures as children's toys is scarcer and it is assumed that it is influenced by European colonists. Miniature objects that were very similar in construction and looks to those of Indians began to appear in European collection in the mid-eighteenth century. The first examples of the dolls wearing accurate representations of clothing were made by nuns who were excellent seamstresses and taught this craft to Indian women. These dolls were given to patrons, or made to represent the different peoples the convent served, and to show the beneficiaries of their missionary work. It showed that the Christian Indians wore more clothing than their 'savage' nearly naked counterparts. Not only the nuns made dolls for visitors, by the late eighteenth century, the Huron had begun to manufacture dressed dolls for sale to European travellers who visited their village at Lorette to watch dance performances. And even earlier, in the seventeenth century, fur traders in New France reported that the Indians of the Great Lakes made little articles that were in much demand with the colonists and were even sent to France. During the nineteenth century, Indians continued to produce figurines that referred to a nomadic hunting and gathering life while their manufacturers adopted more and more the housing and dress of the surrounding white settlers. Dolls were remained the most popular souvenirs throughout the nineteenth century and were a specialty of the Iroquois groups. These dolls maintained the illusion of a hunter and gatherer society despite the fact that Indians could no longer live that life style. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the cornhusk dolls were dressed in a pan-Indian clothing when Plains Indian clothing became more or less the norm for clothing on souvenir dolls. <BR> This particular doll or figurine is made by winding cornhusks. Some sources say that cornhusk dolls were initially made for medicine rituals. These dolls have no faces. By the nineteenth century these dolls became toys as well and some of these had faces, others not. A faceless doll was supposed to help develop the child's imagination. This doll depicts an Iroquois False Face Society Dancer. The members of the society danced to cure the patient. The masks were believed to cure and cause swelling of the face, toothache, inflammation of the eyes, nose bleeding, sore chin, earache, and facial paralysis. Corn husk dolls are made by rolling and winding corn husks. The doll maker starts with the neck and body by folding a husk in a pestlelike form. Husks are wound around the neck to form the head. Other husks are wrapped around the body to give it more shape. After that, husks are rolled or braided into shape and tightly around the ankles. The foot is bent forward and wound into shape. The arms are made in a similar fashion. Strings are wound and tied around the neck and waist. The doll's clothing usually consists of cloth or skin and sometimes husks. The dolls are given all kinds of accessories; cradles, bows, etc. according to its sex. <BR>