Woman’s Creations Have Natural Touch

If there’s roadkill along Harvard Road in Otis Orchard, it won’t be there long.

Nancy Johnson is bound to pick it up.

“I don’t like to waste anything,” says Johnson, 56.

That’s why she takes feathers from dead pheasants or quills from squished porcupines to make dolls - American Indian dolls.

In the tradition of Native Americans, Johnson uses only natural materials to dress the 13-inch dolls. She also follows the Indian ideal of conservation by using what’s available, even if it means picking up dead animals on the road.

Johnson, the granddaughter of a Pawnee Indian, made her first American Indian dolls five years ago for her own granddaughter. Since she started, she has made 115 dolls. Many have gone to doll collectors or the arms of Native American children.

“It’s a craft that’s run amok,” Johnson says.

At first glance, the dark-skinned, brown-eyed dolls look the same. Each has hair divided into two ebony braids, a dress made of fur or leather, a head that comes from an Arizona company specializing in ethnic dolls.

But no two are like, Johnson insists.

Each doll has a different name: “Two Moons,” “Little Bird,” “Buffalo Grass Woman.” Some have little shells in a basket, others carry a baby in a papoose board on their backs.

“She wanted a lot of feathers,” Johnson says, pointing to “Little Bird” and her headdress made of gray and white pheasant feathers. “So I dressed her that way.”

The dolls also take on personalities, she said. In fact, she talks to them as if they were alive. When friends come by with their dolls, Johnson immediately greets them: “Oh hi,” she says, smiling at her creations. “I’m glad you’re home for a visit.”

It takes Johnson a full two days to dress the dolls. She doesn’t sew; instead, she cuts the yellow buckskin and laces the fringes together. She plucks feathers from dead birds and glues them to headdresses. She even gathers willows to make miniature papoose boards.

Unlike other craftspeople, Johnson doesn’t sell her dolls at markets or art fairs. Usually, people hear of her work by word of mouth. She sells the dolls for about $45.

Last summer, Pat McCumber of Post Falls traded a piece of elk hide for two dolls. Johnson used the hide - left over from an elk hunted by McCumber’s late father - to dress a doll for McCumber’s mother, Freda.

Freda McCumber cried when she received “Summer Wind,” she said.

“I didn’t know why I got an Indian doll to start with,” the 75-year-old woman says. “But when I learned the story, she became special.”

Although Johnson is not a registered Indian, she says she has always felt at home with the Native American culture.

Being with them and crafting dolls in their fashion give her a sense of peace and serenity, she says.

“I absorb the culture,” Johnson says. “Making the dolls is like therapy.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo