Corn Dolls | 粟米衣娃娃
A lot of people know that corn is a tasty food, but few know that the cob and ears of corn also have medicinal values. Even fewer people know that corn sheaths have been used by women in rural China to make baskets and containers while women folks in Europe have been using it to create corn dolls for aesthetic value. A corn on cob is protected by layers of sheaths just like the layersof clothes worn by people. It is no wonder that women folks in the countryside have been usingcorn sheaths to make dolls. Twenty something years ago, I saw an old man selling corn dolls by the roadside in the city of Belgrade and I bought twelve dolls from him. I gave away half of the corn dolls to my friends as souvenirs, and I kept half of them. Today I still keep the six corn dolls intact at my place. Little did I know that I have taken up the art of DIY corn doll and have beendoing it ever since.
My husband loves excursions and we often go hiking together. In our hikes, we seldom fail tonotice the variety of local trees, flowers, fruit, and seeds in season. My younger brother,George, is an avid plant enthusiast who knows quite a bit about the taxonomy of wild plants in Hong Kong’s countryside. Naturally the leaves, fruit and seeds we picked up from the wild turn out to be theraw materials for the corn dolls. My brother identified the fruit and seeds, and then the corn dollsI made became our green ambassadors. They were named after the plants I used, such
as Oak Fairy (Thick-leaved Oak),Dichroa Fairy (Antifebrile Dichroa), White Popinac Fairy, Fern Fairy, Bougainvillea Fairy (Brazil Bougainvillea) and so on.
If one is to promote environmental education to the younger generations, it takes much more than hard selling by reason. It takes a passion for plants and compassion for life on Earth. That is the drive for the protection of the environment. With this hope in mind, I teach others the making of DIY corn dolls and ask them to give it a try, and feel, for themselves, the natural gifts of the planet and, at the same time, experience the secrets of Nature, our Home. As Sir David Attenborough said, “No one will protect what they don’t care about; no one will care about what they have never experienced.”
粟米好吃許多人知道,粟米還有其他用處,如粟米心,粟米鬚可作藥用,知的人便不多呢!還有粟米衣雖然不可吃,中國農村婦女們用它來編織籃子盛物,歐洲婦女用它來做娃娃裝飾,那就更多人不知道。
粟米外面的一層一層葉衣,就像穿上了一層層的衣裳似的,無怪乎農村婦女用它來做娃娃。廿多年前我在貝爾格萊德街頭擺賣的老人家手上買12個粟米娃娃,除了給親友送作紀念品,自己留下了一半,擺設至今仍然十分完好。自己後來仿效試做至今卻是意料之外的事了。
由於外子喜愛遠足,我們常在野外看樹木種子,家弟近年也對樹木花卉種子甚
有研究。因此拾回家的種子便落到我的粟米娃娃手上變成了擺設的一部份。家弟做花卉種子介紹,粟米娃娃正好做他們的推廣大使。於是粟米娃娃依手上的植物而命名,如華南青岡仙子、常山仙子、銀合歡仙子、蕨仙子、簕杜鵑仙子等...諸如此類。
我們要環保教育給予下一代,不能單純理性硬推銷,更應培養對植物的感情,這種物情才是我們保護環境的原動力。因此我把做粟米娃娃的方法教給朋友們,讓她們試試做,從粟米娃娃身上感受物料的特色,也希望可感受大自然的奧妙趣味。(沒有感受,那會有關心?
沒有關心,那會有保護呢?)
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