Shadow puppets of Cocos Islands

Australia issued a miniature sheet depicting the lost art of shadow puppetry in its Cocos Islands on 16-10-2018. 

The Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands is an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago approximately midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and closer to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is part of Southeast Asia and is in the Southern Hemisphere. 

The territory consists of two atolls made up of 27 coral islands, of which only two – West Island and Home Island – are inhabited. The population of around 600 people consists mainly of Cocos Malays, who practise Sunni Islam and speak a dialect of Malay as their first language. 

The archipelago was discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling of the East India Company, on a return voyage from the East Indies. In 1814, Scottish merchant seaman Captain John Clunies-Ross stopped briefly at the islands on a trip to India, nailing up a Union Jack and planning to return and settle on the islands with his family in the future. Wealthy Englishman Alexander Hare had similar plans, and hired a captain – coincidentally, Clunies-Ross's brother – to bring him and a volunteer harem of 40 Malay women to the islands, where he hoped to establish his private residence. Clunies-Ross returned two years later with his wife, children and mother-in-law, and found Hare already established on the island and living with the private harem. A feud grew between the two. After some time, Hare's women began deserting him, and instead finding themselves mates amongst Clunies-Ross's sailors. Disheartened, Hare left the island. He died in Bencoolen in 1834. The islands were annexed by the British Empire in 1857. In 1886 Queen Victoria had, by indenture, granted the islands in perpetuity to John Clunies-Ross. On 23 November 1955, the islands were transferred from the United Kingdom to the Commonwealth of Australia. In the 1970s, the Australian government's dissatisfaction with the Clunies-Ross feudal style of rule of the island increased. The Australian government ordered that no government business was to be granted to Clunies-Ross's shipping company, an action that contributed to his bankruptcy.

John Clunis-Ross and Oceania House in the Islands 

The Cocos Malay population, which lives almost exclusively on Home Island, are descendants of  indentured workers from the Malay and Indonesian archipelagos, Africa and Papua to the previously uninhabited islands. Over generations, the Cocos Malay people have developed their own unique and regionally specific culture based on the customs of their Malay ancestors combined with aspects of traditional Javanese culture, Islam and some European practices.

The labourers transported from Java from the 1860s brought with them their cultural tradition of shadow puppetry, or wayang kulit. Based in Indian Hindu tradition, wayang kulit, evidence suggests, has been practised in Java for centuries, at least since the 13th century. Most stories told through the exquisite art of shadow puppetry come from the two principal Indian epic texts, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, particularly the latter, which contains hundreds of stories. 

The dalang (master puppeteer) will manipulate the puppets through lever-like sticks, usually attached to the puppets’ hands, with a ‘central stick’ holding the puppet upright behind the screen. The shadows of the puppets are cast onto a screen, where they play out scenes from the narrative.

Wayang kulit was practised in Cocos (Keeling) until the death of the local dalang, Nek Ichang, in 1949. The dalang’s skills were not passed to the next generation of Cocos Malay, so the puppets no longer perform. There is still a connection with this Javanese cultural tradition, however, as the puppets are housed in the Pulu Cocos Museum.

Thanks Irene for this first day cover ! 

Update : 03-01-2019

Another cover from Australia with the beautiful shadow puppets . Thanks Tasha for the cover - more importantly for the amazing ( self made ) coffee paper .. the paper was intact , not smudged and smelt so fresh  like a good morning coffee :) That was really nice !