Kayenderes Corn Husk Doll Maker By Nikaa Shilling

Kayenderes is a Tyendinaga Mohawk of the wolf clan, her english or "PST" name (as she jokingly calls it) is Charolette Green. At an early age she began to learn about old Mohawk ways. One of her many talents includes corn-husk doll making. She learned this art at around the age of seven from a well known doll maker, her second cousin Izabelle Sky.

Kayenderes says that she continues to make dolls because she does not want those skills to become lost. She wishes to teach others these skills as she has taught her own children. Kayenderes says, “I want to teach younger children, cause that’s when you start with them. I was taught that, they (her teachers) told me the same thing... don’t lose it.” “I think that if young people don’t hurry and take interest in it you know, its gonna all go and that’s what I’m afraid of... I’ve been waiting a long time for people to get interested to do things.”

Corn is an important part of traditional Mohawk existance and that is one of the things that Kayanderes wishes to teach her own people. She says that we must know where that corn husk comes from because, “we can’t get that corn husk unless we have the people that grow the corn”.

The ideas for each doll comes to her in different ways. The dolls with the feathers are “The Bird Dancers”. What she is depicting is the bird itself, “the sacredness of the bird”. Another doll is called, “the one who brings the fire”. That one is inspired by Mohawk legends that she was taught by elders as a child. She also says that as a child she would have visions and used to see the spirits of the ‘Little People’. She remembers some of them having no faces and her dolls represent those memories. Although most dolls have no face, she does make dolls with apple faces and carved wooden faces. She says that when she sees those things in her mind she will create them.

Over the last ten years Kayenderes has had several professional exhibitions in cities across North America. She has since quit doing these exhibitions because she is afraid that is could, “ take the knowledge away from the Corn Husk maker, the doll makers.” She says that once you get started with those professional exhibitions you can put any price on the dolls. However, she says that those high prices are not going to get the dolls into the homes of Mohawk people where they belong.

“I think that if young people don’t hurry and take interest in it you know, its gonna all go and that’s what I’m afraid of... I’ve been waiting a long time for people to get interested to do things.” – Kayenderes