Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets]

1. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] Mead and Bateson’s field trip to study the Balinese of Indonesia and the Iatmul of Papua New Guinea from 1936—1939 was a landmark in the history of visual anthropology.

2. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] They took approximately 35,000 photographs, hundreds of feet of motion picture film, and copious field notes. In this sequence they recorded the work of an artist making wajangs or shadow puppets.

3. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] This page of field notes provides background information about the artist, I Wara of Negara. At the top of the page Mead has indicated that there are “LEICAS” (photographs), “CINE” (motion picture film), and “MK TEXT” (notes made by their Balinese secretary, Madé Kaler) for this event.

5. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] Mead and Bateson worked out a precise system for recording field data in Bali. They would synchronize their watches along with their Balinese secretary and record the time of each action minute by minute, providing a written description of the event and noting when photographs (“LEICAS” or “L”) and motion picture film (“CINE”) was taken.

8. Field Notes on Making Wajangs Shadow Puppets This is a description of the final stages in creating a wajang. Throughout the description, Mead notes the various words associated with the process.

10. Field Notes on Making Wajangs Shadow Puppets Mead and Bateson’s Balinese secretary, Madé Kaler, recorded descriptive material about an event or story in the Balinese language. In this text, he notes the various tools used by I Wara in the process of making a wajang.

12. Field Notes on Making Wajangs Shadow Puppets Madé Kaler provides a drawing of each tool used by I Wara in making a wajang. The numbers for each drawing correspond to the names of the various tools listed on the previous page of text.

14. Field Notes on Making Wajangs Shadow Puppets These notes indicate the source of Mead’s information as well as the existence of photographs and motion picture film for particular events or objects. She also notes some of the purposes for the collection she is acquiring.

16. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] Mead’s notes often include a summary of descriptive material related to an event under study. In these notes, she provides information about the “dalangs”or shadow play experts, and lists other supporting material accumulated on this topic.

17. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] She includes accounts of wajang performances in which plots and conversations were recorded, as well as sets of children’s drawings using wajang figures.

18. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets]

19. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets]

20. Field Notes on Making Wajangs [Shadow Puppets] All of the photographs and a large selection of the field notes from this field trip have been digitized and are available online in the Manuscript Reading Room.