Major Rooster Marionette
date: label: date made
content: 1942
name: label: user
content: Haines, Elizabeth L.
label: user
content: Haines, Frank D.
label: maker
content: Haines, Elizabeth L.
label: maker
content: Haines, Frank D.
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Major Rooster is a character from a traditional Latin American folk tale "Perez and Martina: A Portotican Folktale" written by Pura Belpre and published in the United States in 1932. Belpre was the first Puerto Rican librarian at the New York Public Library and a puppeteer. The story she wrote was told to her by her grandmother when growing up in Puerto Rico.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The traditional folk tale tells of a cockroach, named Martina, who finds a coin on a walkway and decides to buy with it a tin of face powder. She primps and then waits on her veranda above her garden for suitors to call. She settles on marrying a rat, Perez, who, unfortunately, becomes carried away by his own curiosity, falling, the next morning, into a vat of soup Martina is cooking. In some versions, he succumbs and in others, he is rescued.
label: Description (Brief)
content: In this version of the story, produced by Elizabeth and her husband, Frank Haines, (Martina is a cricket and Perez is a mouse) Major Rooster competes for Martina's favors along with Perez and Monsieur Frog . Martina ultimately marries Perez with the blessings of the aging Duenna and her faces turns into a woman, and she lives "as happy as a cricket" with Perez ever after
label: Description (Brief)
content: Major Rooster is hand carved with a hinged orange beak and jointed limbs. . His black head is crowned with a large red velvet comb and red bow tie. . He has black neck feathers and a large back tail feather. He has been padded out around the chest giving him a puffed out appearance and he wears a blue velvet coat with tails. He is operated with a five piece wooden airplane with 13 strings.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Throughout the 1940s the Haines performed this version of the play, ( with Martina a cricket and Perez a mouse), before school groups in the Philadelphia area. The marionettes and stage props were created by Frank and Elizabeth made the costumes and the backdrops.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
topic: label: classified
content: Puppetry
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Elizabeth and Frank D. Haines
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2007.0137.004.09
label: accession number
content: 2007.0137
label: catalog number
content: 2007.0137.004.09
objectType: label: Object Name
content: puppet
label: Object Type
content: puppets
label: Object Type
content: marionettes
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: velvet (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: felt (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: fiber, synthetic, rayon (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: feathers (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: wood (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: paint (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 20 in x 7 in x 7 in; 50.8 cm x 17.78 cm x 17.78 cm