Featured A couple of indonesian puppets?

Once again, calling on the fount of wisdom @Any Jewelry and anyone else who can tell me anything about these?

 

Neat !!!!

When does the show start ??

 

Yes, they are Wayang Golek puppets from West Java, or maybe the western part of the North Coast. I will check my books tomorrow, it is getting late here.

 

I'm back.
I love the guy with the cap, and I knew he wasn't just a souvenir puppet.
I think he is Togog. A bit difficult to say for sure, because there are local differences in the way he is portrayed. I am almost certain that he was once part of a theatre set of puppets.
Togog is a pre-Hindu character, son of the first Javanese God. He is a brother of Semar, the patron of Java. Both of them are asigned as advisors to the people, especially the aristocracy, together with two other brothers.
Simply said, Semar is advisor to the good guys, Togog to the bad guys. That doesn't mean he is bad, it is his duty because both sides have to be advised, in order to get the right balance between the two.
As advisor he can play a role in most Wayang stories.
I think your Togog dates from the first half of the 20th century.

The guy with the white face is Pandu. Pandu is the father of the Pandawas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. The Mahabharata is the classic epic of the fight between good and evil, with the realisation that in the end there is only loss.
The Mahabharata reads like a phone book. But if you are interested in knowing the real message, I can advise reading the Bhagavad Gita, which is a chapter of the Mahabharata.
Pandu is also found in most puppet sets, because the Mahabharata is a must for the education of the people and for sacred performances, if they are needed.
I think your Pandu is slightly younger than your Togog, mid-century. As a puppet he is one of the favourites of tourists, because he is elegant and beautiful.

 

Really awesome! Thank you so much!!

 

Goodmorning everybody,
First of all the best and healthy wishes for the new year.
It's cold here in the Netherlands so time to update some things. Some time ago i bought a few wayang kulit puppets and was able to find the names of most of them. But the 2 attached puppets are giving me some troubles. Mostly the hair, headgear or clothes give enough information to find the name but this 2 are a little different. Can anybody help me find the right names so i can add 2 more pages to my website?

 

The gold one on the right is Batara Brahma. You'll find different versions of Brahma, this is one of them.

The other one, with the green hat, looks like a minor figure. I'd have to search for him in my books, which I can't do right now. I'll get back to you.
If I forget, just tag me.

 

Oops ... i have several pictures of Batara Brahma but all have a beard and are wearing shoes.

 

Is it possible that the first one is Prabawa? That is the only caracter i can find who is wearing such a headdress.

 

The one with the beard is the Batara Brahma from the Mahabharata, where he is the forefather of the Pandawas.
The gold one is from a play with the Trimurti.

Yes, it could be Prabawa, or his colleague, I believe his name was Prabatu, but I'll have to check. Both are indeed minor characters.
I know them with different colour hats, but there are always regional differences, and differences from one set to another.

 

Praguta is the colleague of Prabawa. Both were assistants of King Baladewa of Mandura and both wore those hats.

 

@Ronald_D - can you tell us more about your website? Are you working on a visual catalog of wayang characters?

 

Good morning, As a collector of balinese woodcarvings, kamasan paintings and javanese wayang puppets i'm interested in the stories behind these objects. For the statues and paintings it's about the inspiration of the artist. The puppets caracters have a certain role in the different stories of the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Often i get questions about the names of wayang puppets so i'm trying to explain how to determine the caracter. Further i noticed that many people, who own a nice wooden statue, don't know the story behind the statue or what the statue is about. Then i got the idea to setup a wiki-website where visitors can find alot of information about the statues, paintings and wayang puppets. Registered users can change and add information to existing pages and make new pages.

Please take a look .... https://www.wiki-indonesian-art.com At the welcome-page you find links to the first pages of the different categories and every category-page has it's object-pages in the right menu.

The index-page for wooden statues:
https://www.wiki-indonesian-art.com/index.php?title=Category:Wood_Carvings_*_Statues

The index-page for Wayang Golek Puppets:
https://www.wiki-indonesian-art.com/index.php?title=Category:Wayang_Golek_Puppets

At the moment i'm working on the online-wayang-golek-puppet-database, based on all 797 variants of the book of Peter Buurman and additional information about wayang golek puppets who are not mentioned in that book. With this database visitors will be able to determine their own puppet(s).

The final goal for this wiki-website is that all visitors will have access to an archive where they can find all kind of information about indonesian art and that the interesting indonesian culture (special the balinese) will be saved for the future.

 

Very interesting, Ronald, excellent idea too.

Do you read Indonesian? If so, there are many pages on the Indonesian wikipedia that you may find interesting. This is the general page on Wayang Golek: https://id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayang_golek

The Peter Buurman book is excellent.
I also have an older book on Wayang Kulit which I can't find right now. If I find it I will post it here.
And I have a comprehensive study by Joko Susilo, a Javanese dalang, again Wayang Kulit only. He used the Eisler collection for his study. If you google Joko Susilo you will probably find it.

 

Haha ... i already have difficulties with english so now and then so i use google translate to check the text of the javanese websites below.
https://ki-demang.com/galeria/index.php/wayang-a/
https://blog.hadisukirno.co.id/category/tokoh-tokoh-pewayangan/
But sometimes those javanese websites are also conflicting when they tell different stories about a certain epic.... mostly details are different. Even dalangs have their specific explanations ... special the local ones. For them it's important that a wayang golek puppet has a certain appearance. I guess it's the same with wayang kulit puppets.

 

Google translate is useful. If translations don't make sense to you, there is an online Indonesian-English dictionary you can use:
https://www.kamus.net/

That's Indonesia for you, especially Java.
And don't ask for directions on Java, you can end up anywhere.

With Javanese interpretations in general, nothing is set in stone, and stories vary from village to village and even from family to family. And as you found, from dalang to dalang.

Wayang Kulit is more 'high culture' than Wayang Golek, so it is more regulated. But there are still variations.

 

Thanks for the info .... i'll try out the kamus-website.