My wonderful Alma,
since you had asked to tell you more about the puppets inside the box, I enclose to this letter a few pictures of my leather immortals and knights. I had also reopened Felicia Katz's book, Inside the Puppet Box and learned more details of the puppets which I will share with you.
I only now began to understand why the puppets collection Prof. S has in the house is very valuable, and I mean not just the artistic, philosophical, and historical value, but also of material value. Some of the puppets are older than a century, and the way these older puppets were made, is quite different to the ones made in the past fifty years.
For a start Alma, I shall tell you that these puppets are very intricate. They are made through long and arduous process. The main material for making them is water buffalo hide. The most desired hides come from Celebes island, as the local people there often perform ceremonies and rituals that involve sacrificing buffaloes. These large hides will be washed, and then stretched apart in a square wooden frame, to be sundried for many weeks. Afterwards, they will again be soaked overnight in water, traditionally in ponds or rivers, to soften and clean it. The next day, they will be stretched again, and rubbed off of dirt, hair, and hopefully also any unpleasant odor. This process is repeated several times until the artist feels convinced that it is smooth and ready for the next phase.
You can see two pictures where the hide is cut and shaped as characters. The puppets are typically heavily decorated. Each character has details that show their status, their gender, even their moods. And all these are manifested through tiny holes on the hide. The artists have pencil-size steel sticks and a hammer half the size of a normal hammer, and they patiently, skillfully punching holes through the hide to make patterns of the puppet's eyes, nose, mouth, hairstyle, fangs, crowns, dresses, and jewelry. Imagine the amount of dedication put into puncturing thin lines and tiny dots to these puppets. Such fine details.
And they all come together in one all-night long performance that can propel you to a world of celestial thrones and intriguing plots!
So Alma, why, you might ask, do people put so much work and money into a shadow puppet theater? I think, ages ago when consciousness was still richly embedded into entertainment, the shadow puppet was what the music industry is today. The more ornate the puppets and their attributes such as the box, the gold and bronze leafing, the horn and leather quality, show how high of social status the owner is. And apart from the materialistic worth, these puppets also signify the depth of character and moral virtue the owner supposedly has. These are the virtues that would make a man transcends in life, so the Javanese saying mandates.
Perhaps, if you are not quite dismayed yet, I could interest you in the characters of Arjuna and Krishna? I am such a disoriented storyteller, my letters may have repelled you.
Longing to hear more about your father and Sir Banks.
Yours truly,
GR
since you had asked to tell you more about the puppets inside the box, I enclose to this letter a few pictures of my leather immortals and knights. I had also reopened Felicia Katz's book, Inside the Puppet Box and learned more details of the puppets which I will share with you.
I only now began to understand why the puppets collection Prof. S has in the house is very valuable, and I mean not just the artistic, philosophical, and historical value, but also of material value. Some of the puppets are older than a century, and the way these older puppets were made, is quite different to the ones made in the past fifty years.
For a start Alma, I shall tell you that these puppets are very intricate. They are made through long and arduous process. The main material for making them is water buffalo hide. The most desired hides come from Celebes island, as the local people there often perform ceremonies and rituals that involve sacrificing buffaloes. These large hides will be washed, and then stretched apart in a square wooden frame, to be sundried for many weeks. Afterwards, they will again be soaked overnight in water, traditionally in ponds or rivers, to soften and clean it. The next day, they will be stretched again, and rubbed off of dirt, hair, and hopefully also any unpleasant odor. This process is repeated several times until the artist feels convinced that it is smooth and ready for the next phase.
You can see two pictures where the hide is cut and shaped as characters. The puppets are typically heavily decorated. Each character has details that show their status, their gender, even their moods. And all these are manifested through tiny holes on the hide. The artists have pencil-size steel sticks and a hammer half the size of a normal hammer, and they patiently, skillfully punching holes through the hide to make patterns of the puppet's eyes, nose, mouth, hairstyle, fangs, crowns, dresses, and jewelry. Imagine the amount of dedication put into puncturing thin lines and tiny dots to these puppets. Such fine details.
The next step in the making after the character's shape and details are ready, is painting them. Herein where I began to understand the value of Prof. S' puppets. The puppet artisans from the past, they would use as much organic material as they could with their paint. This goes well with the hide as it absorbs better, although the color would be a little more vague. So the artists had to paint in layers. They also used a special kind of glue into the paint mix, which was made from crushed fish bones. Another element that makes the puppets prized, is that some of the puppets were brushed off with golden or bronze leaves. Rumor has it, they used to be real gold and bronze. Compare it to today's puppet making, most makers now use acrylic paint and carpenter's glue, at the risk of cutting the age of the puppets short!
One, often overlooked, part of the puppet, is the puppet sticks that make the limbs articulate. The secret of it is, they are made out of water buffalo horns. And the lighter the color of the sticks, the more valuable they are (as they are very difficult to find). The making process of the sticks is also quite appealing. The horns are first split into half, length wise, and each half would be sliced right down to the middle, but not entirely severed. And then they would be filed with metal, and heated above oil lamps until they can be shaped into round sticks. Unsurprisingly, for economic reasons most sticks are made from wood or bamboo. But if you were to grip the ones made from horns, Alma, it is as if touching a pillar made of marble, instead of a pillar made of slabs of brick and cement!
So Alma, why, you might ask, do people put so much work and money into a shadow puppet theater? I think, ages ago when consciousness was still richly embedded into entertainment, the shadow puppet was what the music industry is today. The more ornate the puppets and their attributes such as the box, the gold and bronze leafing, the horn and leather quality, show how high of social status the owner is. And apart from the materialistic worth, these puppets also signify the depth of character and moral virtue the owner supposedly has. These are the virtues that would make a man transcends in life, so the Javanese saying mandates.
Perhaps, if you are not quite dismayed yet, I could interest you in the characters of Arjuna and Krishna? I am such a disoriented storyteller, my letters may have repelled you.
Longing to hear more about your father and Sir Banks.
Yours truly,
GR
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