Plantation holder Gaspar van Breugel went to a party of enslaved workers on his Clifford Kocqshoven plantation in 1824, a party which turned into a winti ritual. There was music and dancing for three days and nights. This inspired him to have a set of miniature instruments and six dolls depicting the dancers made. He wrote that the women were ‘dressed like a pattern book’. He gave these dolls to his daughter and nieces to play with, with the idea of showing how well dressed his enslaved workers were but in reality this was not so. These were special clothes for special occasions.
Dolls with a story
Kotomisi dolls are a sort of traditional-dress doll. They were probably made by Surinamers at the request of ‘tourists’, who could then take them to Europe to show what the local population in Surinam wore. But this story isn’t completely right… Read all about the facts and attire of this magnificent toy here.
The kotomisi dolls and illustrations show that clothing styles varied greatly in the period of slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. The upper part of an enslaved woman’s body was naked or she wore a top. Voluminous skirts were already in fashion.
Surinam, 1900, photographer unknown TM-60006821; Paramaribo c. 1920, photographer unknown TM-10019360