A Batak male puppet Si Gale-Gale

A Batak male puppet Si Gale-Gale

Indonesia

articulated with a moving head, eyes, tongue and arms with hinged fingers, knees and ankles, wearing a turban, a shirt, a sarong and neck shawls, rising on a long open platform with the strings operated at one end,

the figure 104cm high, the bench 180cm long, figure and bench 144cm high.

Provenance

Acquired by the present owner in the 1970s.

Si Gale-Gale puppets appeared at the funerals of high ranking men who had no sons to perform their mortuary rights. Controlled by a puppeteer at the funerary dance's alongside the deceased's family, by a series of strings attached to the head, eyes, tongue and limbs, some even had moistened moss placed behind the eyes to shed tears for their dead fathers.