Kotomisi as a landmark

It was hard. I couldn't find my own house. Because I arrived at a time when it was really, really wintry. Nothing like that today. And I had to search. So I placed a kotomisi behind the window, just so I would know that is where I live. Because all the houses looked the same.

In this video my grandmother is talking about the first period in the Netherlands. Coming from Paramaribo, capital of a country with a tropical climate, The Hague was extremely cold. She felt lost, also in the literal sense, because compared to her neighborhood in Paramaribo, the beauty of Dutch city architecture lies in monotony and symmetry. In this new reality, she and her sons had difficulty identifying their own new home. Thus my grandmother placed this kotomisi doll behind the window of their first Dutch apartment.

Her sons, when talking about the first period in the Netherlands, also mentioned this very doll. For a short period of time, the doll acted like a caring aunt, guiding them back home when they felt lost. When I sat down with my grandmother to pick out the items that could go, the dolls were not even a point of discussion. They had to come with her, each and every one of them. My father said to her that she can make new ones and throw these old, discolored ones away. The reality is that one cannot just dress up a new doll and then bestow it with the memories and the past of the old, original one.

All the dolls in this picture are dressed by my grandmother. The tradition of dressing up kotomisi dolls is more than a century old. The dolls' clothing and their attire are miniature versions of the kotomisi, the 'miss in a dress' that are part of the Surinamese streetscape. Traditionally, the misi, the women, wear a koto, the big 'skirts', when they attend church or on other occasions such as weddings and funerals.

Originally this style was introduced by slave owners and their wives as a way to cover them up while at the same time being recognizable as one of their slaves. This dress consists of a jacket, a skirt and a headscarf. Afterwards the kotomisi, just as the peoples of Suriname, emancipated, becoming the occasion wear that it is today.

There are many unwritten rules about dressing, especially for the tying of the headscarf. However, my grandmother always makes it up as she goes along when dressing a doll. But the symbolic meaning remains ever so strong. Made in the Netherlands by my grandmother, the dolls represent Surinamese misses in a dress. They will stay with her to the end. But after that? Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam has its own collection of kotomisi dolls. Would they be interested in my grandmother's dolls, knowing that my grandmother reinvented the traditional dress?