| Description |
Rūkada Nātya is a type of drama performed using string puppets, traditionally meant for providing innocuous entertainment and conveying moral lessons to village communities. Themes are chosen from folktales, Buddhist stories, ancient literature, historical narratives, and the trivia with humorous anecdotes from contemporary life or from nādagam, an extinct form of ‘folk opera’. Puppeteers prepare their own handwritten scripts with dialogs and songs, and recite them, while manipulating the puppets.
Puppeteers make their own wooden puppets with movable joints that represent either ‘static roles’ with fewer movable joints and of near life-size; or ‘active roles’ with many movable joints and of 3.5’ to 4.5’ in height. Puppets are dressed with colourful costumes that identify the characters they portray. Puppeteers manipulate them using strings tied to single short bars or two crossed-bars held by hand, while standing on an elevated horizontal platform and leaned onto a horizontal bar that is fixed across the stage about the shoulder-height of the puppeteers. A small band of musicians provides accompaniment using a harmonium, a violin, and a drum.
Performances are held as community events at public spaces suitable for community gathering, mostly during festive times in the months of May and June, while special shows are held at schools and higher educational institutes. Makeshift stages, made of wooden frames and covered with black curtains on all sides to camouflage the strings to create an in illusion of reality. Performances are held in evenings in a well-covered space under dim light to enhance the illusion.
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| Social and cultural significance |
Using narratives from religious texts, classical literature and folklore as themes, puppet dramas convey to the communities today the traditional knowledge and ancient wisdom engendered through generations of use, renewal, and recreation. Communicated through the medium of puppet drama, the world views and core values essential for peaceful communal co-existence such as ethical standards and norms about the right and the wrong, the good and the bad, justice and injustice etc. that are embedded within traditional knowledge and ancient wisdom becomes alive for children and the youth to comprehend easily. With a strong ‘connectedness’ with the viewer, puppet drama serves as a more effective and efficient mode to convey such messages of morality and ethical behaviour that are crucial for the process of ‘en-culturing’ the society and maintain harmony and cohesiveness among its members |
| Transmission method |
Transmission is made through generational replacement. Young members of puppeteer families and those of extended families learn about performing of puppet dramas, including puppet-making, through imitation of elders. Transmission is further enabled by allowing apprentices outside of Gamwari affiliations to learn under master puppeteers. All members of the family or the group contribute to transmission through script-memorization. |
| Community |
Rūkada Nātya is performed by familial groups who belong to, or are connected with, the lineage known as Gamwari, living around the southern coastal towns of Ambalangoda, Balapitiya, and Mirissa, and believed to be the descendants of migrants from south-western coastal areas of India (possibly Kerala) where string puppetry still prevails as an entertainment medium.
Additionally, there are other groups who are connected to those of Gamwari lineage through marital relationships and have internally migrated to other parts of the island. Furthermore, there are groups of puppeteers who have learnt the art from the Gamwari masters but not related to them.
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| Type of UNESCO List |
Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity |
| Incribed year in UNESCO List |
2018 |
17:09