Imagine, you are a young child living in the early 1940s and it is coming up towards your Birthday. You wonder what present you will be given. You know you can't expect too much and usually, you get books and clothing - practical gifts. This year though, you asked Mum and Dad for a little soft toy. It doesn't have to be grand or anything, but you'd really like a friend to take on adventures. Mum said she'd see what she can do, and you were so happy when you opened your gifts to discover a little bear. He's even better than a soft toy - he's a puppet. Mum made him specially for you.
When I took this little hand puppet to show the children they immediately fell in love with him. His name is Little Bear and he was one of my own toys when I was little. He is a really endearing puppet, with a slightly crooked angle to his head which makes him seem alive. Although this particular puppet is quite modern, the children were surprised to discover how far back the history of hand puppets like Little Bear stretches. They had thought that such puppets were simple childrens toys made in more modern times to keep children entertained. They assumed that, having learned that for many children in the past playtime was scarce, such toys would simply not have been thought of. They were surprised to discover that not only did they exist, they weren't actually just childrens toys.
Although we can't be sure exactly when hand puppets began to appear, we can assume that puppetry using the hand is the most ancient form of puppetry. The are many forms of puppetry and we will look at others separately. Just as children use their hands to create little creatures or their shadows and make them talk, early humans probably used their hands to help tell stories. Glove and hand puppets are an extension of this and may be similarly ancient, though we have no way of knowing. We do know that hand puppets, using a glove with the fingers cut off and faces drawn on the fingers, were used by Christian Priests and Monks to tell religious tales. After all, for many centuries, most people couldn't read, and probably wouldn't ever see a Bible anyway, so using such puppets was very useful to 'spread the word'. Other religions and cultures used glove and hand puppets in a similar way, though they were still quite simple.
By the Medieval period, puppets had become much more mainstream though. No longer were they used simply to tell religious tales, but they were used simply for entertainment. Touring puppet shows became a common attraction at fairs and continue to be so today. Sometimes, these touring puppet shows simply performed a prerehearsed show, but sometimes they were used as a tool for social commentary, poking fun at people (especially rich people) and sometimes even revealing 'secrets' about people in their audience. Supposedly, the puppets didn't reflect the views of the puppeteer, so the puppeteer could get away with such behaviour. Punch and Judy, who first appeared in Italy as the marionettes Punchinella and his wife Joan, became the most popular of such glove puppets in the 17th century, and actually seem to have advanced the way that glove puppets were made. Instead of simple paper heads, wood and ceramic (and much later rubber and plastic) began to be used. You can see a moneybox which uses Punch and Judy as the theme in an earlier post by clicking here. By the 20th century many of the original religious and social reasons behind puppetry had begun to lessen and hand puppets started to be used as childrens toys.
