Mamulengo string puppet (marionette) of a male character. Head, hands and feet carved from wood and painted. He has brown skin, bald head, a closed mouth with red lips, and wide green eyes. He wears red floral pants and a long-sleeved yellow floral top. The fabric is adhered to the hands and head, and wrapped with shiny bright blue ribbon at the wrists, cuffs, and neck. Attached by several 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 35.5 cm, width 19.0 cm, depth 6.5 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 May 28, 2019
• Acquisition Date on May 28, 2019

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• Condition good
• Accession Number 3352/0010