shadow puppet

Carved and painted leather shadow puppet of Twalen’s son, Merdah. The puppet has an articulated jaw. He, and the other panasar, or servants, translates the Kawi spoken by the heroes and heroines into colloquial Balinese, at the same time adding humourous episodes and comments unrelated to the main story. In the Mahabharata story he is a servant on the side of the Pandawa; in the Ramayana on the side of Rama. Merdah is a sly character.

Collection Information

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