African American Puppetry History
Paulette Richards is a puppet artist and the author of ‘Object Performance in the Black Atlantic: The United States’.
In 2018, she worked as a co curator on an exhibit at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, called ‘Living Objects: African American Puppetry,’ which sparked his research into the art form.
Through her research, Richards was looking for evidence of a connection between object performance in Africa to contemporary African American puppetry, but she hit a brick wall at first.
“We did not have any objects from the period of enslavement that were made by enslaved people that would meet the prevailing definition of what a puppet is. That was a rupture, or a break, in the lineage from Africa to present day Black life.”
Richards said that disruption was the primary reason African Americans did not reclaim the art form of puppetry until the 20th century.
While searching the WPA Slave Narrative Collection, Richards said she couldn’t find theatrical objects, like puppets, but found that enslaved Black Americans used ritual objects.
“But when I put in the word ‘doll’, I got lots of hits. Once I understood that enslaved people made dolls, received dolls as gifts, and owned dolls. An object that you own, that is for your own private use, you can assign any meaning to it. People assigned spiritual, as well as, play and entertainment meanings to these figurative objects.”
The lineage of African American object performance is in the ritual objects, according to Richards.
“The black church is the space where the use of ritual objects that people had known in Africa continues sort of under the radar.”
An Unlikely Type of Puppet
During her research, Richards learned that there is an unlikely puppet prominent in the Black Church - fans.
Before the invention of low-cost color printing, fans were woven from palm fronds or similar fibers, according to Richards.
“If you've been to church in places like Florida and unconditioned church, in summertime, it's a very hot, stuffy place to be. So those palm frond fans were essential for people being able to sit through the service.”
She said the process of making palm fronds into fans was knowledge passed down from African ancestors, as the fans in Africa were ritual objects.
“They are not serving, precisely, the same ritual function in Christian Black churches in America, but the knowledge of how to make one and the sense of it holding and circulating breath, gives it a kind of animation. Then when we start putting images on fans that are holding and circulating breath, we're animating actual figures of people like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and at that point, I can stretch the definition of puppet and say, ‘that is a puppet, not just a fan’.”
Where we came from and where we’re going
According to the Library of Congress, the earliest record of puppetry dates back to Egypt in 19th Century BCE.
Richards said in Europe during the Middle Ages, where some church congregations were illiterate, puppets were used to act out Bible stories.
“In fact, the word ‘marionette’ comes from the French diminutive of Mary, the mother of Jesus. So people would act out the nativity story, for example, with puppets.”
However, when puppetry became mainstream in American theater, Richards said they weren’t always available to Black people.
“We didn't always have the right to enter theaters, where puppet shows were playing so we wouldn't necessarily have seen puppet shows in the earlier part of the 20th century.”
Richard said the real catalyst for African American puppetry was the debut of shows like Sesame Street and the Muppet Show.
“For the first time, people could see them (puppets) in their own homes on television.”
Now, puppetry is not only on TV, but Richards said it’s on social media too.
“And there's a whole hashtag, which has been going for 10 or 15 years, called hood puppets, and these are puppets with a hip hop sensibility. So that's one of the places that African Americans are making their mark on the evolution of this art form in the United States.”
