Rama

This puppet represents Rama. It wears royal garments (compare parts of a real court costume, 2008.77.A-.J), including shoes with bird heads at the toes, and it has green skin, in accordance with the usual mainland Southeast Asian convention of depicting Rama.

This marionette has inlaid glass eyes, a movable lower jaw, and hands articulated at the finger joints. As was customary, its genitals were carved on its wooden body. Despite its careful construction, however, this puppet does not follow the standards of the professional puppet troupes of Mandalay. It may have been made for the tourist market. Puppets have long been made in a variety of qualities at different prices.

Both the patterns and the composition of the textiles with which the puppet is dressed (all cotton, with few or no synthetic components) suggest a date of about 1950 to 1975, but as tourism developed only after 1970, it may have been made somewhat later.