Non Card Stuff - Bobbly Goodness

With all the bobbleheads I've posted about lately, I figured I ought to mention the two I already had.  I'm not really a bobblehead collector per say, but I do think they're neat, and I've got two in my possession that are very personal to me and my heritage.

The first one sat atop my wedding cake 5 weeks ago.  It's a personalized bride and groom bobblehead that my mother-in-law had made for us for the occasion.  It's pretty neat!

They're supposed to look kind of like us, and I'd say they do in general/  One key different is that my wife's wedding dress did not have a cut out in the midsection to show off some skin - we definitely had a lot of laughs about her bobblehead's ho-ey wedding dress!  Another key aspect is my wife's jaw, which actually had to be glued back on.  The owner of the barn we were married in knocked this off the cake the morning of the wedding, and when the bobblehead hit the ground my wife's jaw shattered.  He fixed it with some super glue and all was well, so luckily that situation didn't end up too bad!

My other bobblehead is a truly weird one, and allows me to claim something that few people probably can - I own a bobblehead of one of my distant relatives.  This relative is a great great great (etc.) grandmother of mine, Hannah Duston.  In positive terms she is referred to as the first woman in the United States honored with a statue (and it is still standing) and a folk hero.  In negative terms she is referred to as the mother of the American tradition of scalp hunting.  Here's her bobblehead:

I think this bobblehead is pretty fantastic, if not completely absurd.  She is in 1697 period clothing, holding an axe, ready to avenge her village and baby.  As the story goes, Hannah, her husband, and 9 kids were chillin' in Haverhill, NH in 1697 when a tribe of Abenaki Indians came by and attacked them. Stories say 27 colonists were killed and 13 were taken captive.  Hannah's husband and 8 kids got away, but Hannah, her newborn baby, and her maid were taken hostage.

On the way back to the Abenaki camp, they took the baby and killed it by smashing its head against a tree, which was probably a bad move because it ignited a fire in Hannah only comparable to Liam Neeson in the "Taken" movies.  Six weeks later Hannah led a revolt in which her, her maid, and a 14 year old boy named Samuel killed two grown men, two adult women, and six children, scalping them all.  They traveled down river to Haverhill in a canoe, and once they arrived they were each given a reward for killing the Abenaki Indians.  This story became pretty famous because Cotton Mather mentioned it in his "Magnalia Christi Americana."  Her story was later retold by the likes of Nathanial Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau.

Once upon a time Hannah was revered as a true queen of badassery, but modern times have painted her story differently.  Some people (aka most of my relatives) view her as a hero, others call her a villan, and Abenaki descendants say the legend is racist and that it glorifies violence.  All have their valid points, and I tend to fall more on the side of villan/racist since she didn't have to kill 6 kids and 2 moms to avenge the death of one baby (especially since the reward was an incentive for their deaths).  Nonetheless, she's still one of the first cases of a strong willed woman getting her story told in America, and she probably did a lot more than your great great great (etc.) grandma did.  So I think it's a neat story to share, whatever you decide to think of her actions.

Since both these bobbleheads relate to my family, I figured I'd take a family picture as well:

I really like this image...sort of looks like Hannah is making sure I stay a good husband to my wife.  If I don't, she's got a hatchet with my name on it!  YIKES!