Simple Toys

Before the influx of Western commercial games and toys, Arab boys and girls made up games, using objects such as stones or shells, or simply made objects such as a ball from an old pair of socks.

Dolls were made at home out of discarded clothing or rags. A grandmother usually assisted a girl in doll making. Some dolls were made by tying long and short sticks together with a strip of cloth to form a cross, the basis of a person. Then a piece of cloth would be stretched over a large button or wad of padding to make the head. More strips of cloth were wound round the two sticks, being careful to secure the head in place.

Dressing the doll depended on what girls and women of a particular region wore. The idea was to copy the style of clothing worn by real people. Dresses were long, with long sleeves as well. Girls didn’t mind that their dolls had no hands or feet, since these did not show.

Older girls would experiment with dolls that had a trunk, so that arms, legs and a head could be attached. The result would be a cloth doll sewn together by hand and filled with padded cloth, sand or seeds.

Breaddough was available to girls because they assisted their mothers with the kneading of dough for bread. Mother would give them some dough from which they fashioned small ovens, dishes and other tiny toys.

Stones were often used by boys as gaming equipment. In one simple game, very similar to American jacks, small stones would be gathered, then one tossed in the air, while the rest were gathered up in many different ways requiring greater skill with each round. The difficult part of this game, in contrast to jacks, where the tossed ball bounces once and is then caught, is to complete these maneuvers while the tossed stone is still in the air and then catch it before it hits the ground.

Slings were fashioned by the boys themselves. Traditionally woven from a length of wool acquired from mother’s needlework project, slings today are fashioned by boys using appropriately fork-shaped branches and pieces of old inner tubes from tires. Boys learn from each other how to make slings.

Such slings, it should be pointed out, are not used simply in play. Shepherds use them so skillfully that they are able to drop a stone exactly in front of a wandering sheep, causing the animal to turn and return to the flock. Slings are used in hunting too. Pigeons and such small birds as sparrows are a part of the diet in many areas, and are hunted with the sling.