Batuan children create beautiful puppets
Batuan children create beautiful puppets
By I Wayan Juniarta
DENPASAR, Bali (JP): A tiny room in the Puaya hamlet, Batuan village, 15 kilometers east of Denpasar, where children learn to make beautiful wayang kulit (leather puppets), was virtually empty.
Where are the children? There were only six wooden blocks, a number of small carving tools, numerous half-finished puppets hanging upside-down from the ceiling and some puppets laying on the cement floor.
"They went home for lunch and have not yet returned. Well, we are still in the festive mood of Galungan and Kuningan (two important celebrations for Balinese Hindu)," explained the bare- chested and smiling Ketut Daweg at his workshop.
It was 2 p.m., and the scorching sun was almost unbearable. Yet, the workshop was quite cool. Daweg sat cross-legged on an old green rug, focused on an unfinished wayang.
"Working with children is full of surprises. You have to be able to arouse their curiosity, otherwise they lose interest in their work," Ketut lamented.
For the past three years, Daweg has been meticulously teaching the village children how to creating elaborate leather puppets, a skill he inherited from his late father, a noted puppet master.
It all started when a boy knocked on his door and asked him to teach him to make puppets.
When Daweg agreed, to his surprise, the boy came to his workshop with some of his pals.
"At that time, I realized that I had found a way to transfer my skill and knowledge to these children. I didn't want to expect too much, but I believed that this was also a way to preserve one of our precious cultural heritages," Daweg said.
Daweg set up his training as an apprenticeship program. He teaches the needy children and at the same time he encourages them to work with him.
He pays the children based on their skills and capability.
Daweg emphasized that money was just a way to enhance the children's enthusiasm, to encourage them to work hard and to master the art of making puppets.
"A skilled child can earn between Rp 15,000 and Rp 20,000 for each wayang. It usually takes three days for a child to finish one wayang," Daweg said.
He said it usually takes about six months to a year for a boy to master the art of carving wayang. But, each child is different. He said there was one boy who has been learning and working with him for more than a year but still could not fully master the art.
"I have never become angry or reprimanded him. Harsh words will only discourage children from the puppet-making art," he said.
Up to now, dozens of children in the village have joined the program. Most of them are boys, but some girls have also joined, including Daweg's two oldest daughters.
When the crisis hit Indonesia and the demand for leather puppet was quite low, with just four to five orders a month, Daweg was creative enough to teach the children to make traditional dance costumes, just to keep them busy.
Daweg, 52, was born into a talented family. He recalled that his father, his grandfather and even his great-grandfather were respected dalang (traditional shadow puppet masters), and famous puppetmakers.
"I learned the art of carving wayang when I was 7 or 8 years old. And I did it because I loved it, not because I was a son of a famous puppet master," he reminisced.
Yet, he was never interested in becoming a puppet master until a strange phenomenon happened a few years after the death of his father. Daweg suddenly found that he could not concentrate on anything. He lost his motivation and ultimate goals in life.
Not until he studied under the famous dalang, Wayan Narta of Sukawati, and Bapa Sidja of Bona, and then performed for the first time at his village's temple that the strange feeling finally disappeared.
"Sometimes you just cannot fight your own destiny," he concluded.