• Presentation
  • PrГ©face
  • Towards the audience
  • Reputation for WEPA 1978-2017
  • Complex content version
  • Contributors

Authors

Translation Alain Cloarec (2013)

Associated articles

Contemporary

Informations

Latin America

Based on the sacred guide regarding the Maya, the Popol Vuh, “the reputation for puppets and males of wood started before the creation of males because of the gods and ahead of the males of corn inhabited the earth”. As Mané Bernardo, Argentine puppeteer and writer, stated, “primitive guy discovered their dance shadow on cave walls and had been fascinated. Later on, he created clay that is aesthetic, but experiencing a necessity to see them go, he broke them into components. He articulated your head and members, along with his have to show himself compelled him which will make them live, to produce them express or transfigure all of that their heart had been maintaining inside and he imperiously wished to communicate towards the globe that surrounded him.”

Pre-Columbian Puppets

Alejandro Jara, a specialist in prehistoric puppets, asked issue: “Where did the writers of this Popol Vuh discover the concept to illustrate their texts with allegories of ‘living, walking and chatting puppets built away from lumber’ if you don’t through the pictures that surrounded them inside their day-to-day everyday lives?” The annals of Pre-Columbian US puppets makes us assume why these inhabitants had been profoundly marked by animist opinions and guy forged links along with his divinities through specific rituals where the puppet often took a crucial part. Several Native American civilizations, Aztec, “from TeotihuacГЎn”, Maya, Inca, Arawak, Amazonian, CalchaquГ­ (Argentina), native individuals through the Pacific coast and Native americans, dominated the production and manipulation practices of puppetry (see indigenous American Puppetry). Many articulated figurines with holes inside their minds, either sequence puppets or glove puppets manufactured from clay, stone, lumber or any other materials, had been present in various internet web sites and among each person.

The Códice Florentino (Florentine Codex, 1577) is really a compilation of Spanish and Nahuatl texts put together by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún (c.1500-1590) throughout the Spanish conquest for the Americas and considered a crucial supply of information on pre-Hispanic native individuals. It relates right to the spiritual and profane purpose of the puppeteer. One of these brilliant texts mentions a kind of entertainer whom “makes the gods appear, leap and play” and holds “in the palm of their hand, an item which he can manipulate to move or dancing, producing entertainment or wonder into the spectator”. One of these simple things, called muchachuelo, is straight connected to clay that is articulated present particular archaeological internet web web sites. Alberto Mejia Barón has an essential collection with a certain Olmec puppet dating from 1300 BCE fond of him with a sorcerer whom used it during treating sessions. This figure is completely articulated such as the lips plus the tongue. Other articulated clay statuettes have now been discovered dating from the 4th century CE that have been 35 centimetres high with hands and/or legs in addition to the human anatomy but mounted on it by normal fibres, providing them with a mobility that is certain.

The majority of the figures discovered in Mexico have actually typical traits regarding the “Teotihuacán” culture with, however, neighborhood variants. Their ornamentation is quite diverse. Some have actually earrings, bracelets, necklaces, pendants and tattoos. Other people have actually base ornaments. Apart from the Mayas, Incas and Aztecs, other reduced known civilizations unveiled findings that are important those regarding the San Agustín civilization within the Magdalena River Valley in Colombia. Archaeological findings reveal that this civilization flourished beginning with the 6th century BCE. Its sculptures by means of monoliths expose the presence of rites during which masks and objects that are animated utilized. Later, the Quimbayas created articulated figurines manufactured from silver and representing great beings.

In El Salvador, tiny, mostly feminine sculptures that would be considered puppets have already been unearthed. These “Bolinas figurines”, found within the 1950s by the archaeologist Stanley Boggs, participate in the period that is pre-classical had been determined become from the Olmec civilization in accordance with Roberto Gallardo. Their function continues to be a mystery and their craftsmanship shows that a little sequence could have now been used to control their arms.