The large horizontal “goggle eyes” of this statuette led it to be called “dogu with snow goggles”, their shape recalling the protections the Inuit population used against the reverberation of the sun on the snow. For others, they are closed eyelids involving these figures in the world of the dead.
A hairdo with the hair shaped like a crown adorns the head, the nose is merely represented by a hole between the two eyes without eyebrows. Two strips in relief feature necklaces around the neck. The torso with its harmonious curves, wide hips and shoulders, is extended by two arms and decorated with a wavy network of corded impressions heightened by rows of dots. This type of dogu, essentially limited to representing women, is again characterised by the tiny proportions of the hands and feet. They are usually found in the northern regions and in the last Jomon period, mainly those of Tohoku and Kanto in the Aomori prefecture.
These dogu or “clay dolls”, fired at a low temperature (800°c.), are hollow.
Their ritual use has not yet been clearly specified. They are usually found in tombs near villages, sometimes voluntarily broken and scattered, perhaps for prophylactic reasons. Their female forms also seem to connect them with a fecundity cult; these statuettes were associated with a shamanic use and set up a connection between supernatural and natural worlds. Already by the next era, the Yayoi period (300 BC-300 AD), this type of statuette had entirely disappeared. So, along with corded ceramics, they were one of the most typical art forms of the Jomon period.
