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Cultural Context

Theatrical performance.

Iconographic Meaning

White face suggests purity, virtue and high moral purpose; face canted downwards shows humble or pious nature. Caste marks, fine facial features, clothing, and headdress are evidence of wealth or noble ancestry, particularly batiked skirt. Arms and body painted gold represents calm character. Symbolism of woman in man's clothing unknown; role of puppet has not been determined.

Description

Three-dimensional female humanoid puppet: head (part c) fits into body with skirt (part a), and a control rod (part d) with a long shaft passes through the body and fits into the neck of the figure's head. The body has jointed arms, each with a long controlling rod attached. The figure's right arm is broken at the hand where the control rod attaches (part b). The figure has a flower motif on each breast underneath a black fabric bib decorated with gold-coloured beads and coloured sequins. The bib has a shiny bright green mandarin-style collar decorated with braid and silver sequins. Forward-bending white face and neck, small straight nose, slit-shaped eyes, red lower lip, red caste mark, beaumark on right above corner of mouth, ears. Top of head is flat, straight black hair. Gold body and arms; crown of gold, green and red. Multicoloured band around waist, attached to body with blue tack on front, red and blue tacks on back. Long batik skirt, in beige, light brown and grey-blue.

History Of Use

Javanese puppetry as an art form probably developed by the 11th century. The three-dimensional wooden wayang golek puppets of western Java, which are to be distinguished from the earlier and more sacred wayang kulit shadow plays puppets or other forms, appeared during the 16th century. Originally the plays depicted Javanese mythology, but after the Indian conquest of Java the Hindu epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata, were incorporated into the cycles, which comprise about 200 plays. An individual or group hires a dalang (puppet-master) to celebrate important occasions. The performances often last all night and are generally presented in three acts, with vocal and instrumental accompaniment. The individual plays vary widely in detail but usually involve conflict between good and evil. They serve a moral and religious purpose, and more recently, one of political commentary. Each puppet's character is represented by its appearance and placement onstage; protagonists with strong elements of good are placed to the right, antagonists of violent or evil nature to the left. Character of puppet is obscure; perhaps an idiosyncrasy of the individual dalang. Generally unknown.