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Messages For This Generation

8 images Created 5 Aug 2013

The marionette, a carefully carved small boy with curly hair and large eyes dances in the darkened room.

Children seated on the couch had been watching television, but are now watching the marionette dance with rapt attention.

The message Koffi, the marionette, brings is fitting: Learn how to read and write, and you will be able to read and tell your own stories -- not just watch them on television.

Holding the strings is Adama Bacco, the founder of a female marionette and performance group in Togo.

"I started making my marionettes from waste and garbage," Bacco says, pausing to pick up a puppet style marionette portraying a sorcerer.

"The marionette is a dead object," she says, grabbing the rough wooden stick beneath its tattered red shirt, "but this is the stick of life."

The moment she grabs the sorcerer, Bacco begins to chant in a gravelly sing-song voice: 'there will be peace in Togo. There will be peace.'

Bacco, who has made over 100 marionettes, says the topics she portrays range from peace, reconcilliation, self sufficiency, family values, rural education -- especially for girls, famine, AIDS, health, child trafficking and hygiene.

But in Africa, marionettes are not just the object of social awareness and education.

The self-proclaimed godfather of marionettes, Kanlanfei Danaye explains that marionettes are a deeply rooted part of traditional beliefs in Togo and across many regions in Africa.

"In Togo, some marionettes are seen as something sacred which can heal, curse and protect," says Danaye, the son of a traditional healer and marionette maker.

Danaye treats his marionettes more as animate objects and excitedly tells stories of a marionette which he says behaved as a healing voodoo doll.

"You have to be one with the marionette. The relationship that exists between me and them is special. They have stories that only I know."

At first, making these traditions available for the masses attracted the ire of tribal elders, Danaye says, but he believes preserving culture is something worth pursuing.

"It protects the tradition. There are some songs and rhymes that will never disappear because of this."

For children and adults alike, the stories marionettes tell can relay information, share parables and protect tradition.

"There are many messages to pass on. You can't talk about marionettes without talking about stories. It's not just for amusing the children. There is no limit."

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  • LOME, TOGO  - The legend of the hippopotamus: An orphan went to retrieve some treasure but had to cross a river, in which a hippopotamus was swimming. The hippopotamus offered to help the orphan get across, and after some convincing, the orphan agreed. The hippopotamus warned the orphan not to tell anyone about his assistance. The orphan found some treasure, and used the hippopotamus to return across the river. Again, the hippopotamus warned him to keep the secret. A mother also had sent her son to search for this treasure. When he got to the river, the hippopotamus also offered to help him cross -- with the same warning: don't tell anyone I helped you cross. The son found also found some treasure, but told everyone how he had crossed the river. Upon returning to the river, the hippopotamus took him on his back and immediately drowned him. The mother came looking for her son, and asked what happened. The hippopotamus offered only a big smile.  "It shows that orphans are more respectful of rules. But children with parents do not respect the rules because they are spoiled," explains Danaye.   Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-001.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  - The Elephant and the Lion. The lion is thought to be the king of the beasts, but it is in fact the elephant who is king.  Danaye says the real king is very often someone who does not proclaim he is a king. "But everyone knows he is because he is the strongest."  Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-002.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  - The smile thief is a witch who robs children of their happiness in the night, when she transforms into a mosquito. Only children who sleep under mosquito net are safe from the sickness and sadness she brings. Bacco says this health oriented marionette is one of her most successful.   Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-003.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  -  "It has mouths where it is supposed to have eyes because it speaks with its eyes at night." Slightly cryptic and unwilling to provide more details, Danaye appears to want to keep some of the meanings of his marionettes secret.   Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-004.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  - Zando and the magic egg. Zando is a pauper, and one day in the forest he comes across a bird which provides him a magic egg which gives him many riches and much wealth.  He has feasts, parties and gives people whatever they ask. One man asks for gold, another for possessions -- Zando is able to give them everything nonchalantly. One crafty man asks for the source of Zando's wealth -- and Zando gives him the egg. Immediately, all the wealth disappears along with the magic egg.  The moral: guard the source of your wealth.   Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-005.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  -  Koffi's wealth is found in reading. As a champion of reading he encourages others to read, imagine and also learn to write their own stories. Children are wasting too much time watching television, says Bacco, who uses the marionette to encourage children to read and write.  Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-006.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  -   This marionette is named Mazor Dordor, which litereally means 'walking slowly' in Ewe. While his soldier designed to be a guardian of the people, who looks out for injustices and corrects wrongs, his name also suggests 'sneaking,' describing how the military sneak into the political arena.    Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-007.jpg
  • LOME, TOGO  - The Génie. Inside all of us is the potential for good and evil, explains Mme Bacco, who is inside the marionette. This two-faced marionette is over eight feet tall. One face is smiling and normal in appearance, while the other -- the evil face -- is bright red and sinister. A snake illustrating choices made in the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden rests on the marionettes head. From the good side the snake appears to only be stylized hair.   Photo by Daniel Hayduk
    hayduk-marionettes-008.jpg
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Humanitarian Photographer Daniel Hayduk

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