These shadow-plays are half mythical and religious, half heroic and national in character, portraying the well-known feats of native gods and princes, the battles of their royal armies, their miraculous and preposterous adventures with giants and other fabulous creatures. Each incident, each character is familiar to the audience. One heroine is thus described in Javanese poetry. “She was really a flower of song, the virgin in the house of Pati. She was petted by her father. Her well-proportioned figure was in perfect accord with her skill in working. She was acquainted with the secrets of literature. She used the Kawi speech fluently, as she had practised it from childhood. She was elegant in the recitation of formulas of belief and never neglected the five daily prayer hours. She was truly Godfearing. Moreover, she never forgot her batik work. She wove gilded passementerie and painted it with figures, etc., etc. She was truly queen of the accomplished, neat and charming in her manner, sweet and light in her gestures, etc., etc.
“She was sprayed with rosewater. Her body was warm and hot if not anointed every hour. She was the virgin in the house of Pati. Everyone who saw her loved her. She had only one fault. Later, when she married, she could not endure a rival mistress. She was jealous, etc.”
A prose account tells us of the same young lady. It is said of Kyahi Pati Logender’s youngest child: “This was a daughter called Andjasmara, beautiful of form. If one wished to do full justice to her appearance the describer would certainly grow weary before all of her beauty could be portrayed. She was charming, elegant, sweet, talkative, lovely, etc., etc. Happy he who should obtain her as a wife.”
Javanese Rounded Marionettes
[American Museum of Natural History, New York]
The plots are based upon old, old Indian saga, from the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Pandji legends and also upon native fable such as the Manik Muja. There are several varieties of Wayang play, each founded upon one or several of these sources. The Wayang Purwa and the Wayang Gedog are silhouette plays presented by leather figures behind a lighted screen. Sometimes, however, the women in the audience are seated on one side of the screen, the men on the other, so that some see the gray shadows, others the colored figures. The Wayang Keletik is given not with shadows but with the painted hide figures themselves displayed to the audience. All these performances are not ordinary public events, but rather special productions in celebration of particular occasions. Etiquette at the Wayang demands that regular rites be observed before the performance, incense burned and food offered to the gods.
The Dalang, or showman, is a person of great skill and versatility. He seats himself cross-legged on a mat surrounded by figures; there are about one hundred and twenty to a complete Wayang set. He directs the gamelin music of the orchestra which keeps up a tomtom and scraping of catgut throughout, gives a short preliminary exposition of the plot, brings on the characters which he holds and manipulates with slender rods, places them with precision and then the play begins. The Dalang, as the music softens, speaks for each one of the characters. The general tone is heroic with comedy introduced upon occasion. There are struggles, battles, love scenes, dances. The Dalang shuffles with his feet for the dancing, makes a noise of tramping or fighting, adjusts the lights on the screen, all the while moving the figures and speaking feelingly for them.
Besides these so-called shadows the Javanese have also rounded marionettes carved out of wood, which have long, slender arms and fantastic touches revealing kinship with the figures of painted hide. The play presented by these crude but rather startling dolls is called Wayang Golek. The puppets are moved from below by rods attached to their bodies and hands as are the shadow figures. Still other types of plays are the Wayang Beber, presented by rolls of pictures, and much later (eighteenth century) the Wayang Topang in which rigidly trained human actors, dressed in the conventional costumes of the Wayang figures, take the parts of the puppets. But here as in the puppet dramas the Dalang reads all the words.
On the island of Bali, one of the group of the Indian Archipelago, Wayang plays are like those of Java. The old figures are very wonderful, cut out of young buffalo hide, carefully treated and prepared. The tool formerly used to make them was a primitive pointed knife. The Wayang sets made to-day, in spite of the superiority of modern European instruments which are employed, are very crude in comparison. This is because with the loss of independence the natives also lost all interest in their own art and culture; indeed new Wayangs are made only when the old ones are worn out.