The New Hampshire Historical Society is not only getting complaints from the outside about its latest bobblehead dolls, depicting Hannah Duston and Chief Passaconaway. One employee has quit and another has refused to handle or sell the bobbleheads because they find them offensive to Native Americans, according to a source who's spoken to the workers.

Rebecca Courser of Warner, who once managed the society's museum store and knows the two employees, said Lynn Clark resigned as the society's administrative assistant this month. And Nancy Jo Chabot, a store employee and security guard, has refused to inspect or sell the bobbleheads, Courser said.

Both Clark and Chabot have American Indian expertise, and Chabot helped work on the museum's Indian exhibit 13 years ago. Chabot told society officials in writing before the bobbleheads went on sale that she could not sell them in "good conscience," Courser said.

Clark and Chabot, both of Contoocook, said they could not comment when reached at home last week. Clark is looking for work elsewhere, and Chabot still works for the society as a security guard.

The newest bobbleheads have been publicly criticized as historically inaccurate and insensitive to American Indians. Duston is shown with the hatchet she used to scalp Indians and the words "The Mother's Revenge." Passaconaway appears in a cap so blue some said it brings to mind a Smurf.

The society compounded the insult, critics said, by celebrating Duston, a killer of Indians, with Passaconaway, a chief who presided over a peaceful time. David Stewart-Smith, historian for the state's Intertribal Council, aired his complaints in a recent Monitor column.

Last week, Stewart-Smith put his feelings this way: "To have the New Hampshire Historical Society come out with a caricature of an Indian after all these years of us working on this issue . . . is just staggering."

The debate has raised questions not only about selling bobbleheads but also about how to present history generally. Is there a place for bobbleheads alongside exhibitions and scholarly journals?

Bill Veillette, the society's executive director, said Friday he could not comment on personnel matters or say whether he's had complaints from staff about the newest bobbleheads. But from inside or outside, criticism hasn't changed Veillette's mind about selling those dolls.

"If (the society) gets scared of every little criticism that comes at us, we'll crawl under the rock and do nothing," Veillette said. "We'll become the most boring place in the world. We'll reinforce the notion that history is like religion and politics: You don't talk about it in polite company because you don't know who you will offend."

Duston and Passaconaway are the society's seventh and eighth bobbleheads, following, among others, Gen. John Stark, the Old Man of the Mountain and former president Franklin Pierce. Veillette said he's the one who chooses the people to depict and how to depict them.

He does it with this in mind: The bobbleheads are intended to expose people to history, but their real purpose is to make money for the society's other operations.

"If you want the product to sell, frankly, you have to use the most iconic image that people are used to," Veillette said. He used Abraham Lincoln as an example. Visitors to his museum buy a kit of Lincoln's log cabin home in the gift shop even after learning in the museum that Lincoln didn't live in a log cabin.

"When I took over the society (in late 2004), the store was losing $30,000 a year. I can't subsidize a store. The store must subsidize the museum."

Veillette said Duston and Passaconaway were good choices for a couple of reasons.