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Questionnaire on Dolls

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A printed two-page document titled 'Questionnaire on Dolls' by N. W. Thomas.
Page proofs of Northcote Thomas’s ‘Questionnaire on Dolls’, published in the journal Man in 1906.

A two-page printed questionnaire from 1906 created by Northcote Thomas, M.A., for publication in the journal Man. The document is a formal inquiry into the cultural significance and use of dolls, categorized by thematic inquiries into physical description, biological mimicry (such as feeding and sleeping), mortality and trauma (including disease and burial ceremonies), social and emotional dynamics, and ritual or supernatural uses. It features an institutional stamp from the Anthropological Institute in London and was printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode. The second page contains handwritten numerical annotations and signatures.

Community Notes

Onyeka Nwokike

Sep 02, 2026

Thomas distributed this questionnaire to colonial administrators, missionaries, and travelers to gather ethnographic data before he began conducting personal fieldwork, as described in A questionnaire on dolls.

Onyeka Nwokike

Sep 02, 2026

The inquiries in this document draw upon an 1896 study titled A Study of Dolls, published in The Pedagogical Seminary by American psychologist G. Stanley Hall and A. Caswell Ellis, who had previously distributed similar queries to school children in Scotland and the USA.

Onyeka Nwokike

Sep 02, 2026

Following the publication of this questionnaire, Thomas presented a preliminary paper on dolls at a Royal Anthropological Institute meeting on May 14, 1907. This research interest culminated in the collection of approximately 40 dolls from northern Edo towns, including Uzebba, Otuo, Sabongida, Agbede, Irrua, and Fugar, during his 1909 to 1910 survey in Southern Nigeria, a process detailed on [Re:]Entanglements.

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