Back in the days of yore, almost every woman had a monkey doll like this one. Those who didn't have a monkey pined away for one, or made one from a piece of old chair cushion or something. (The History Channel is going to be showing a 90 minute documentary on this, but not until 2009, so I thought I'd post some information now.)
A group of monkey doll fearing marauders had been terrorizing women at that time. (This is a photo of their leader, William Smith) These marauders felt that monkey dolls had an evil power over men, so they never touched them.
Inside these special monkey dolls were small vials filled with precious drops of perfume. These rare perfumes were hidden in the monkey to protect them from the marauders who showed up on a regular basis to ransack houses in search of just one precious item: perfume. The marauders ended up stealing the "Factice" perfume bottles that were left out in plain sight. Smith's marauders collected a very impressive amount of fake perfume, and tried to sell it on the black market which led to the famous "Fake Perfume Rebellion of 1873. I won't tell the rest of this fascinating saga, just in case you want to watch the actual documentary.
