Balinese Puppetry

Balinese wayang performance

Balinese wayang puppets 

Historical Background

Puppet (Indonesian: wayang means shadow) has existed in Indonesia around 1500 BCE where the function of the wayang at that time was to be used by shaman to perform religious practices in worshiping ancestors. The ancestors were personified in the forms of images made from rocks where in later development they were engraved in the rawhide of animals. Since the penetration of the Hindu religion and traditions into the archipelago in circa 400 CE, it brought with it the most famous Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata.

After the influences if the Indian caste system, traditions where the priests and other expertises have played different roles in society, therefore, in later development wayang is not performed by the shaman any longer but instead it is performed by a dalang, the puppeteer whose role is more for show rather than religious performance. Shaman and dalang are not the same, however, in Balinese beliefs sometimes both the shaman (Balinese: balian) and the dalang can play the same role in helping people to get recovered from certain diseases which is believed to be caused by the unseen evil spirits. In Indonesia wayang was first only known in Java, Bali, Sunda, North Sumatra and Kalimantan (Borneo), then it is also known in Lombok, a small island in the east of Bali.

Material and Subject Matter

In Bali wayang are made from cow or buffalo hides, there are only certain people who have artistic talent to create wayang. There are about 175 characters in one box (Balinese: gedog). The carving of wayang are very delicate and a lot of details. In making the wayangs the artists must follow the ancient rules and beliefs. There are fixed patterns in creating all characters of the wayang, each character has its own distinctive straits. The most famous characters of the wayang are the characters that depicting the two Indian great epics: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. However, one character can have double roles or even multi roles (like the kayon). The kayon is used to depict a mountain, wind, water, and to tell the audiences that the Dalang switch the scene. And between the characters of Ramayana and Mahabharata the wayang can be used interchangeably. For example: the character of lord Rama of the Ramayana can be used to depict the lord Krishna of the Mahabharata since they both are considered as the reincarnation of Vishnu. But not all characters can be used interchangeably. 

Kayon is the symbol of five basic elements in this world

The Instruments

In general, there are two types of instruments that accompany the wayang show depending on the subject matters: the batel and the parwa. If the subject matter is taken from the Ramayana epic, the instrument to accompany the show is called batel, but when the subject matter is taken from the Mahabharata epic then the instrument to accompany it is called parwa. The difference between the batel and the parwa is the number of the instruments played during the play. The batel needs more instruments than the parwa, therefore batel needs mope players. The wayang group is sometimes called sekaa batel consists of people who are interested in wayang play. The puppeteer is the one who studies in school or from the older dalang. The Dalang is assisted by two persons who sit on the left and on the right of the Dalang. Those two persons are very important called katengkong. They have to know the story well in order that they can provide the Dalang with the right characters during the show. Before the initiation ritual they have to perform every night for a month.  They are initiated by the guru with a special ritual called melaspas wayang. During that ritual the wayang is performed for public.

The clowns are the translators of fine characters who speak Kawi, the Old Javanese

The Roles of wayang

Wayang has played important roles in Javano-Balinese societies. The roles of the wayang are varied depending on the demands of those who need it. The wayang can be performed merely for entertainment or for certain events like marriages, tooth-filing or three months old baby ritual and for other religious purposes to purify environment or spiritually unclean persons. The wayang for entertainment is usually performed on the temporary raised stage built only for the performance. The subject matter is taken either from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata and it can last for all night long. During the performance the wise smart dalang usually insert some moral advice for the audiences, or sometimes the dalang will narrate the current socio-political events being undergone by the regional and central government of Indonesia. These insertions are usually relayed by the clowns whose roles are to translate the language of fine characters who speak Old Javanese language (Kawi) into common language, which can be understood by all level of the audiences. Any jokes are also presented by the clowns to keep the audiences awake before the climax of the show which is the victory of good (dharma) against evil (adharma).

Types of wayang

Based on the topic of the wayang, there are various types of wayang. There is a wayang lemah which is performed during the day-time. The main purpose of the wayang lemah is to exorcize the polluted people spiritually. This type of wayang usually takes the plot from the sudamala story where the sudamala means “to free the stain”. This wayang does not need screen or lamp but instead they use white tread for the screen tied into two vertical daddap trees (a kind of coral tree) on the left and on the right of a horizontal banana trunk. This wayang is needed to exorcize the babies who were born on the wrong time according to the Balinese calendar, and also the twins need to be exorcized by a dalang. This wayang is performed when the babies three-months-old. 

Wayang lemah or Sudamala when wayang is performed without screen

Another type of wayang is wayang Calonarang which is considered dangerous because it is very magical. This wayang is usually performed in the death temple or near the cremation ground since in Bali we consider the cremation ground is the place to gain supernatural power from practising the black magic and white magic. The topic of the Calonarang is about the fight between the practitioners of the black magic represented by the Rangda, the witch widow against the white magic represented by a powerful sage Mpu Bharadah. During the show, the dalang will draw a magical invisible wall (mandala) with certain boundary lines in the four compass directions to protect the audiences from the attack of the black magic practitioners because the dalang with his loud voice invite all of the witches to test his magical power. The dalang himself is considered magically powerful (sakti) but to find out the strongest witches there is a night fight amongst them. In addition to classical types of wayang, in present day Bali young dalang created new types of wayang called wayang Tantri. The characters of this wayang are animals and the story is taken from the Tantri Kamandaka, a collection of animal stories.  

Wayang Sudamala where the demonic Durga will be exorcized by Sadewa