Dolls bring pride and identity for indigenous woman in Brazil

Luakam Anambe, of Brazil’s Anambe indigenous group, who is at the helm of a small, burgeoning business selling handmade indigenous dolls poses for a photo in her sewing workshop at her home in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Part of the money she makes from her dolls goes toward a social project Luakam has been putting together in Para state, to help women in need (Silvia Izquierdo/AP)

Luakam Anambe wanted her newborn granddaughter to have a doll – something she had never owned as a child working in slave-like conditions in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest.

But she wanted the doll to share their indigenous features, and there was nothing like that in shops – so she sewed one herself from cloth and stuffing.