Mamulengo string (or marionette) puppet of a 'Ritinha' character. Head, hands, and legs are carved from wood and painted. She has pink skin, wide black eyes with long eyelashes, and a slightly open mouth with large red lips. She wears a dress made of two different yellow floral-patterned fabrics with dark pink ribbon lining the neckline, cuffs and belting the waist. She has long curly black hair with a pink and orange ornament on the left side of her head. The fabric is adhered to the hands. Her boots are painted black. She is attached by many black strings to a wooden T-shaped control bar.

• History Of Use

  The puppet represents a character from a form of popular puppet theatre, found in northeastern Brazil, called mamulengo. This type of theatre is prevalent in disenfranchised communities with ancestral ties to colonized Indigenous peoples and uprooted, enslaved Africans. Mamulengo performances are entertaining events that can last all night long, with puppeteers (mamulengueiros) using 70 to 100 puppets in one staging. The stages are pop-up stands (empanadas), made of brightly coloured, floral-printed cloth. The shows consist of short sequences (passagens), or skits from popular stories that expose the inequalities and dramas of everyday life, profiling stock characters such as rich landowners and peasant labourers. The whole is spun together with humour, satire, lively music, and audience commentary.

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• Type of Item puppet
• Culture Brazilian
• Material wood, fibre, paint
• Measurements height 45.0 cm, width 21.0 cm, depth 10.0 cm (overall)

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• Creator Jacilene Felix de
• Previous Owner Associacao Cultural de Amigos do Museu de Folclore Edison Carneiro
• Received from Associacao Cultural de Amigos do Museu de Folclore Edison Carneiro, Museum of Anthropology Exhibitions Budget

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• Made in Gloria do Goita

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• Creation Date during 2018
• Ownership Date before July 25, 2019
• Acquisition Date on July 25, 2019

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• Condition good
• Accession Number 3381/0021