FOR LOVERS AND COLLECTORS of wayang
kulit (leather puppets), Gendeng village in Bangunjiwo yakarta, it is where
tens of artisans ;prodsubdistrict, Kasihan district, Bantu regency, Yogyakarta,
is well known.
Located some seven kilometers
southwest of downtown Yogyakarta, it is where tens of artisans produce
Yogyakarta style wayang kulit of high
quality.
It is therefore not surprising to
learn that the village is not just well known among wayang kulit lovers and collectors, but also among noted puppeteers
such as Ki Timbul Hadiprayitno and Ki Hadi Sugito, said to have puppets made in
Gendeng in their wayang kulit
collections for show purposes.
“We prioritize quality. As for myself,
It’s not just a matter of generating revenue but more importantly a desire to
preserve leather puppets,” said local artisan Sagio, 67, the owner of a puppet
handicraft workshop.
The history of Gendeng as a center
of wayang kulit production started
back in 1925 when a newcomer named Bundu came to the village and introduced puppetry,
including how to make wayang kulit,
to the local villagers.he later had a pupil named Walijo, also known as Atmo
Sukarto, or more commonly, Pujo. It was Pujo who then introduced the puppet
handicraft industry to the village in the 1930s.
Gendeng gained its golden years a
puppet production center especially during the rule of Indonesia’s second
president Soeharto, who was also known as a wayangkulit
show lover.
“I was once sent to Japan to promote
wayang kulit there,” said Sagio,
adding that he spent a year there from 1969 to 1970 for the purpose.
Ever since, he said, he was
frequently sent to other countries for the same reason. Sometimes he even
visited a country more than once. Among the countries he visited were the Netherlands,
France, England, Hungary, New Zealand, the Unites State, India, china, Thailand
and Singapore.
Sagio himself said he started
learning about puppet making when he was 11 years of age. He said he first
learned from Pujo, then directly learned it from Bundu. When Bundu passed away.
Sagio frequently went to the Yogyakarta Palace to have a closer look at the
palace’s wayang kulit collection to
learn about their fine and high quality.
This accounts for why Sagio is well
known as an artisan specializing in fine and high quality wayang kulit in the Yogyakarta style, although he is also capable
of making puppets in the Surakarta style.
Workshops
He said he initially also learned puppetry
and was once a puppeteer but he finally decided to focus on puppet making
because he realized that no formal institution for puppet making was available.
“There were schools for puppeteers,
but none for puppet makers, that is even still the case now,” he said.
Gendeng’s glow as a center of wayang kulit production faded away
following Soeharto’s fall in 1998, leaving only about 50 artisans in the
village.
Wayang kulit handicraft showrooms
and workshops are mostly centered in the area around the subdistrict hall, as
the hall is also located in Gendeng. Among the well-known workshops ar those of
Sukono, SAntoso, Sabarno and Suprih.
“Many of them were previously my
apprentices and now they have their own workshops,” said Sagio.
He added that he previously took on
apprentices to be trained as wayang kulit
artisans in his workshop, but he has not done so since 1998. Nowadays he
only receives groups of students or tourists to experience puppet making at his
workshop. Some stay for up to a week, others just for three to four hours.
Other workshops in the village also
do the same. Apart from selling puppet products at different prices depending
on their quality level and size, they also offer puppet making experiences.
“There are always tourists coming to
the village to enjoy the experience,” said Sagio, adding that some 75% of the
tourists visiting Gendeng were foreigners.
He said an average of 20 foreign tourists
visited his workshop every moth, giving him a monthly revenue of about IDR 20
million.
Products on offer in the workshops
include puppets of the standard size for both collections and souvenirs,
puppets of bigger and even huge sizes for decoration, puppets of smaller sizes
for bookmarks or wedding souvenirs, and puppet key-rings.
In the village, tourists can also see
the process of turning animal leather into parchments. For this they can go to
Suyoto’s.
“I need at least three days to get
this leather ready,” said Suyoto, 57, while currying a sheet of buffalo leather
spread on a structure to be turned into parchment.
The process starts by submerging sun-dried
buffalo leather overnight in a nearby river to soften it, then spreading it the
following morning on a structure to dry and curry.
“The best leather for making puppets
is buffalo,” said Suyoto, whose workshop is located some 100 meters to the east
of Sagio’s.
To get to the village, visitors have
to take a taxi or private vehicle, as no public transportation heading to
Gendeng is available. However, it is just a stone’s throw from the renowned
ceramic handicraft production center, Kasongan. Both Kasongan and Gendeng are
under the same jurisdiction of Bangunjiwo district administration.
In fact, both are part of the
subdistrict’s leading toruism and industrial package called KAJIGELEM, an
abbreviation of Kasongan, Jipangan, Gendeng and Lemahdadi.
Jipangan is a bambbo handicraft
production center while Lemahdadi is a stone statue production center. [Sources
from the Jakarta Post, August 2018|words by: Sri Wahyuni]
