Colorful Puppetry

I.Long History: From the Beginning

1. Long Past Years

            (A) Puppets: From Ancient Times

            Puppets, also named wooden images, wooden human miniature, were named as clay puppets in caves, clay images, ghostly figures, etc. in ancient times.

            Puppet plays can be traced back to clay figures in slavery period many thousand years ago. When time came down to the Zhou Dynasties, slave owners used human figures (“yong” in Chinese) to replace real human slaves to be buried with the dead. All this came from social development and the the gradual realization of importance of human beings. People used wooden or earthen human figures to replace human sacrifice originally to be buried alive with those deceased aristocrats. Sometimes they even bound straw into the figures of human beings, and named them as “straw spectres”. “Sandalwood Bow” in Rituals of Zhou Dynasties has the following record: “Confucius asserted that using ‘straw spectres’ was good, but using puppets or clay figures (which were too similar to humans in appearance) were unkind because puppets started from humans as burial sacrifices.”Later Confucius exclaimed: “Didn’t the first maker of puppets and clay figures have their own offspring?”The implied meaning is that they should not sacrifice wooden or clay miniatures of humans since they would not sacrifice their own children. Since wooden and clay android figures were substitutes for real humans to be funeral sacrifices, their types and kinds also increased. “Sandalwood Bow” has more record: “Puppets (“yong” in Chines) were images of humans with their faces, facial features (facial organs) and hair, resembling real humans.”Of course it took a long evolution period for figures as burial sacrifices to develop into puppets capable of singing and dancing. The music images unearthed in Hunan Province was only a burial sacrifice. But this kind of images of arts laid solid foundations for them to grow into images or puppets of performance. These puppets to imitate action of humans or beasts began only as ceremonial sacrifices to those deceased. Liu Zhao annotated an entry entitled “spectral emperor’s visits of West Garden” in the chapter “Annals of Five Actions” ofBook of Later Han Dynastywhich has the following record: “In the capital city of that time, people would produce puppet music at weddings and add memory music after they had drunk enough alcohol. Puppet music had originally been the music for the family which had deceased person, and memory music had originally been the music played when the son was holding a great rope before the hearse at funerals.”The chapter entitled “Music” in The Book of Old Tang Dynasty recorded this way: “Cave puppet music” is also named as “puppet music”. They made android drama images capable of singing and dancing. The music was originally used by the families during funeral periods. It started to be used at carnival gatherings in the Han Dynasties.”

            Duan Anjie of the Tang Dynasty wrote a historical hearsay in his book “Miscellany of Music Ministry”: 202 BCE, Chen Ping, adviser to Emperor Liu Bang--first emperor of West Han Dynasty, made up puppets as beautiful women and made them sing songs and dance behind wall parapets, which dissolved the besiege by a northern chief Mo Du. This indicates that the puppets of more than two millenniums ago were capable of songs and dancing, and it was very hard to distinguish humans from puppets. Another record entitled“Tang Wen Annals” in the book Their Excellencies(ca. 947-928 BCE) of Western Zhou Dynasty recorded that a craftsman presented to King Mu of Zhou a puppet with movable eyes and limbs. The puppet “winked its eyes and moved its eyeballs to called to those ladies-in-waiting”.This aroused King Mu’s envious anger and the craftsman had a narrow escape for life. This record has pushed the beginning of puppets to several hundred years earlier than the previous mentioned record. They have unearthed a puppet capable of sitting and kneeling with flexible joints, a little taller than real human figures, in Faye Brigade (Faye Village),Yuanli Xiang (Yuanli Township), Laixi County, Shandong Province, in 1979.According to historical records, that was used in an aristocrat’s funeral for leading the road and avoiding the evil. It was similar the opening-road god used in a funeral of the rich family.

Whether the above-mentioned records can serve as evidence for the development of puppets in China is still under discussion and research. But archaeological discoveries can serve as evidence for the development of Chinese puppets. Therefore we can confer that “Chinese android images--the original forms of puppets--developed into the puppets through a long period of reforms and changes.” They grew into puppets capable of singing and dancing during the Sui and the Tang dynasties. Lin Zi of the Tang Dynasty wrote an essay entitled “Essay for Wooden Figures” like this: “Its hands can wave and feet can dance. It swirls on the left and whirls on the right. Therefore, it transcends five arts and goes above all plays.”This indicates the important positions of puppet plays in all kinds of dramas during the Sui and the Tang dynasties.

The prime period of puppet development was the Tang and the Song dynasties. Liang Huang composed a poem “Ode to Puppets” during Emperor Tianbao’s Reign in the Tang Dynasty: “Wood is carved and stringed like an old man, /With goose skins and white hair like real./Though after the play silence began, /Human life still seems a dream unreal.”This shows that the making and performing of puppets carried some features that are still used in today’s puppets.

            Puppet dramas developed to a high level in the Song Dynasty. There was a record of the grand event of above-water puppet performance in the chapter entitled “Emperor Dining at Waterside Hall” in the book Records of Eastern Capital (Volume 7):Near the hall are two boats for music. Another boat of a smaller size had a small colorful tower on it. The tower has three doors like a puppet cabin, facing the two music boats. There was a military banner with lucky words written thereon. When the music played, the colorful cabin had its doors opened, with puppets appearing. One of the puppets, dressed in white, was a fisherman, and another puppet was a child, rowing the boat to go several rounds while talking. When the music was on again, the puppet fisherman got a real fish on his line and hook. When another piece of music was started, the little boat went into its tent. Then there were puppets suiting and dancing and whirling together with songs and echoing songs. Then everything came to a halt with another piece of music. This was named above-water puppet show.

            Poets in the Yuan Dynasty preferred to compose poems to puppet dramas. Yuan You, a poet of the Yuan Dynasty wrote in his poem “Viewing Puppets”:“Their brisk waists and limbs dressed in brocade/And this hour in the Capital should remain in brain./A song of peace producing bonus, the dances/And words under lanterns were viewed in streets.”Chronicles of Hainan Island records the following information: “There were hand-supported puppet bands in Hainan Island during the Yuan Dynasty. They had come from Chaozhou.”

            The Ming Dynasty also witnessed great development of puppet shows, as was recorded by Tang Bohu, a great fine artist and author wrote in his poem: “Dressed in paper and joined by threads, / They threw mundane ups and downs into your heads./ Though they are phantoms under shadow-of-flower, /They still tried to make their peers seem lower.”