WAYANG - the javanese art

Introduction 

Wayang is the Indonesian term for puppet, and the term refers to any and all of the numerous varieties of puppetry found in the archipelago. "Wayang", the Javanese word for puppet, also connotes "spirit." Performances are typically accompanied by gamelan music.

History of Wayang

Even before Hinduism came to Indonesia, the original inhabitants of Indonesia already had puppet plays, heavily bound up with their traditional beliefs about the spirits of their ancestors. According to their animist beliefs, ancestors' spirits could affect the lives of the living, either as protectors or to do harm. The adherents of these beliefs performed rituals and ceremonies in the form of puppet plays to ask their ancestors for assistance. The figures in these puppet plays were wayang golek (normally a head assembly connected by a straight stick to a trunk, allowing the head to swivel. Arms were attached to a separate staff, allowing hand motions), carved, painted and dressed figures, manipulated via threads or strings, painted dioramas or sanctified and dressed humans.

Hinduism arrived in Indonesia from India even before the Christian era, and was slowly adopted as the local belief system. Sanskrit became the literary and court language of Java and later of Bali. The Hindus changed the Wayang (as did the Muslims, later) to spread their religion, mostly by stories from the Mahabharata or the Ramayana. Later this mixture of religion and wayang play was praised as harmony between Hinduism and traditional Indonesian culture. On Java, the western part of Sumatra and some smaller islands traditionalists continued to play the old stories for some time, but the influence of Hinduism prevailed and the traditional stories either fell into oblivion or were integrated into the Hinduistic plays.

When Islam began spreading in Indonesia, the display of God or gods in human form was prohibited, and thus this style of painting and shadow play was suppressed. King Raden Patah of Demak, Java wanted to see the wayang in its traditional form, but failed to obtain permission from the Muslim religious leaders. As an alternative, the religious leaders converted the wayangs golek into wayangs purwa made from leather, and displayed only the shadow instead of the figures itself. Instead of the forbidden figures only their shadow picture was displayed, the birth of the wayang kulit.

At the west part of Java Island, one can still find wayang golek performances, and wayang klitik is a transitional form between wayang golek and wayang kulit. The wayang klitik figures are painted, flat woodcarvings (a maximum of 5 to 15 mm thick -- barely half an inch) with movable arms. The head is solidly attached to the body. With these, it is possible to do puppet plays either by day or by night. This type of wayang is relatively rare. Wayang kulit, nowadays made from water buffalo hide, (sometimes painted or dyed) are known throughout Indonesia simply as wayang. In modern Indonesia, they remain a beloved entertainment, second only televised football (soccer) matches.

In modern Bali, one also finds a form known as sendratari (invented in the 1960s), in which living persons dance and pantomime to gamelan music, wearing masks known as wayang topeng.