Miss Nara is back in Idaho, and she has a baby sister.
Idaho's Japanese Friendship Doll, a 1927 gift intended to ease relations with Japan, has spent the past four months being restored in her homeland. Chips and cracks were repaired, her kimono was cleaned and she received a little sister, "New Miss Nara."Both dolls will be on display at the Idaho Historical Museum in Boise until January.
Historical Society registrar Jody Ochoa said restoration costs were paid for by Japan's Nara International Foundation.
The dolls were displayed for a week at a department store in the city of Nara, where 10,000 people came to see them.
A dollmaker in the Japanese Imperial household made Miss Nara and 57 other dolls as a gesture of friendship during the troubled period before World War II. Americans sent 12,000 American dolls to Japan.
During the war, all but 230 of them were destroyed and ritually burned. Thirty-two of the Japanese dolls in the United States survived the war.
The restored Miss Nara and new Miss Nara are friendship gifts to Idaho.
"I hope this works a little better than last time," Ochoa said.
Both dolls entered the United States with goodwill passports, which were stamped by customs agents in San Francisco. Idaho customs agents will stamp the passports at a reception Monday night in Boise, when a Japanese vice consul from Portland presents them to Gov. Cecil Andrus.
In a reciprocal goodwill gesture, Idaho now has a friendship doll in Japan.
Made by Boiseans Darrel and Susan Fowler, the Idaho doll is dressed in Indian clothing. Its name is LaTis Kuts Kuts, Nez Perce for "little flower."