Linda Raedisch
In my article, “All One Family: Secrets for Beltane” in Llewellyn’s 2016 Sabbats Almanac, I waxed mystical about the number nine. I also expressed a burning desire to play Nine Men’s Morris (the game, not a folkdance) with giant kokeshi dolls—you know, the painted wooden dolls shaped like clothespins whose heads squeak when you turn them? This year, I’m striking a compromise: Nine Dolls’ Morris played with tiny kokeshi dolls made mostly out of paper.
In Japan, dolls play an important role in springtime fertility rituals. They are often made out of paper painted with stylized apricot blossoms, and they are often sacrificed to running streams.
You think that playing Nine Men’s Morris with kokeshi dolls sounds a little far-fetched? It isn’t really. We know the Vikings played the game, but the design of three concentric squares with four lines radiating out from the innermost square was drawn in ancient Egypt and in Sri Lanka where it served as a sort of good luck charm.
The best time to play this game is during the nine nights preceding Beltane (or Walpurgis Night, as I prefer to call it), since that is when the magic is thickest in the air.
Nine Dolls’ Morris
Time frittered: So many dolls and so little time! This one takes several hours.
Cost: About $20.00 if you use top-of-the-line washi or chiyogami paper, much less if you use the thinner, photo-printed kind.
Supplies
Eighteen old fashioned unfinished wooden clothespins, “legs” sawn off, or eighteen ½" unfinished wooden beads
Printer paper* or other paper (it won’t show)
Origami paper in two contrasting patterns (This is all about springtime, so go for cherry blossoms, fluffy clouds, or something green and leafy. The dolls will be playing on opposing teams, so make sure the two patterns are easy to tell apart.)
One 8" or larger square of cardboard or stiff paper
Metallic marker*
White all-purpose glue*
Black acrylic paint
If you are using a clothespin, roll all but the head in a strip cut from the origami paper, nine of one pattern, nine of the other. Glue in place. If you are using wooden beads, you will first have to make the body. Roll a 1" × 11" strip of paper into a tight roll and glue at end. No, rolling paper isn’t as easy as you’d think but rolling it around a pencil or drinking straw makes it easier. Cover the roll with origami paper as for the clothespin, then glue the wooden bead on top to make a head.
Paint all dolls’ heads black, leaving a space for the face, of course. Don’t paint facial features! Let each doll decide what her own personality is going to be.
Find some small flower or leaf shapes among your scraps of origami paper and cut them out. Glue one on top of each doll’s head. For the wooden bead dolls, this is to cover up the hole in the bead. For clothespin dolls, it’s purely cosmetic.
Now to make the board. You’ll need a square of cardboard or stiff paper no less than 8½". Draw on the lines as shown with a small circle at the corner of each square and at each point where two lines meet. That makes 24 circles: 24 points on which you can place a doll.
You and your opponent each get a “team” of matching dolls. Place your dolls, one per turn, on the circles on the board. At this point, you’ve got an eye out to placing three in a row, but it’s not likely to happen, since your opponent will be out to thwart you at every turn, just as in tic-tac-toe.
Once all the dolls have been placed on the board, you and your opponent take turns moving them, one per turn, to empty adjacent circles on the board. There is no jumping and no ousting an opposing doll from her circle. When you’ve managed to shuffle three of your dolls into a row, you’re allowed to “capture” one of your opponent’s dolls. Dolls in rows are inviolate; they cannot be captured, unless there are no more free-ranging dolls of that team on the board, in which case they become fair game.
When one player has only two dolls left, the other player has won.
To be honest, I’m not how this game spread all the way from ancient Egypt to the Orkney Islands and the Indian Ocean. But my family seems to enjoy it, and I like making the dolls.