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43.000 WayaQ Theatre. In Javanese civilization music, theatricals, wayai} and dancing are closely connected. Popular the atricals, masked dances, shows and pageants, found in many districts of Java with local variations, have been described in the pre sent author’s “Javaanse Volksvertoningen”. Javanese notes on these subjects are scarce; mostly they have been written at the promp ting of Dutch scholars. Wayary the Javanese puppet-show, is at present the most characteristic of Javanese scenic performances. Its influence on other arts (painting and drawing in wayai} style, dancing in wayai} wow, plays) is considerable. Several kinds of wayai} puppets are known: wayai3 kulit or wayai} wlulai} (flat leather), wayaw, krucil or wayaw, klitik (flat wooden boards with leather arms) and wayai} golèk (wooden puppets with movable heads and flexible wooden arms). Moreover, there is wayai} bèbèr, which consists of scrolls of textile with polychrome pictures, representing scenes of a play (v. 31.080). The leather wayai} puppets are by far the most popular, so that the term wayai} without specification is mostly understood in the sense of wayai} kulit. On the origin of the wayai} puppet-show some theories have been put forward by Dutch scholars, the first of them Serrurier (“De Wayang Purwa”, 1896) and Hazeu (“Het Javaansche Toneel”, 1897). In the present author’s opinion originally the wayai} puppets were images of ancestors, long gone, and spirits or gods, and the wayai} perform ance was a means to demonstrate visually cosmic and social order. On this order human well-being was believed to depend. Still existing exorcist rites with wayai} puppets

(ruwat, lukat) are survivals of originally sacred wayai} performances belonging to pri meval indigenous Javanese religion. Wayai} plays with plots (partly) borrowed from Indian epic literature (Mahabharata and Ramayana) are later additions or amplifi cations of the originally simple sacral tale or myth (v. “Javaanse Volksvertoningen”). Koes Sardjono’s thesis “De Botjah Angon “(Herdersjongen) in de Javaanse Cultuur” (1947) contains an interesting survey of opinions on the wayai} and its connections with other elements of indigenous Javanese civilization. In the pre-Islamic period wayai} perform ances (presumedly still firmly connected with exorcist rites and religious belief) were well- known. The wayai} style is clearly discernible on some stone reliefs decorating the outside of East Javanese temples. But the period of great popularity and expansion seems to begin in the 17th century. According to Javanese tradition, the wayai} theatre was “invented” by the walis, the legendary apost les of Islam in Java. The new religion, Islam, may have loosened the link connecting the ancient sacral wayai} performance with an cestor worship and primeval belief, and so popularization and secularization were made possible (see also 15.600). The plays belonging to the repertory of the various kinds of wayai} shows have been registered under the head Wayai} Plays in Part Three (Belles-Lettres) of the present Synopsis (31.080 ff.). Under the present head Javanese texts on the wayai} performers’ art (in Javanese called: padalai}an) and on the making of wayai} puppets are mentioned. At the Central Javanese Courts, especially in Surakarta, interest in the wayai} art was