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Description

Mamulengo rod (stick) puppet of a male character. Head, hands and feet are carved from wood. The man has black skin, large black almond-shaped eyes, and red glossy lips. He wears a round woven hat, long-sleeved dark blue with red floral shirt, and yellow with heart-pattern pants. He is barefoot. The fabric is adhered(?) to the hands and head, and wrapped with shiny neon green ribbon at the wrists and neck. Operated by three rods - one large rod is attached to the lower back, and two more rods are attached to each foot.

History Of Use

The puppet represents a character from a form of popular puppet theatre, found in northeastern Brazil, called mamulengo. This type of theatre is prevalent in disenfranchised communities with ancestral ties to colonized Indigenous peoples and uprooted, enslaved Africans. Mamulengo performances are entertaining events that can last all night long, with puppeteers (mamulengueiros) using 70 to 100 puppets in one staging. The stages are pop-up stands (empanadas), made of brightly coloured, floral-printed cloth. The shows consist of short sequences (passagens), or skits from popular stories that expose the inequalities and dramas of everyday life, profiling stock characters such as rich landowners and peasant labourers. The whole is spun together with humour, satire, lively music, and audience commentary.