Senora Beetle Duenna Marionette: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

This marionette figure , Senora Beetle Duenna 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.

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.

In the puppet play produced by Elizabeth L. Haines with her husband, Frank D. Haines, Martina is a cricket and Perez is a mouse who competes for her favors with a rooster and a frog. Martina is looked after by an aging duenna beetle. She marries Perez, her face turning into that of a woman, and she lives "as happy as a cricket" with Perez ever after.

Senora Beetle Duenna , Martina's warden, is carved from wood with a swivel head and hinged limbs. Her face is painted olive green, with large white eyes, horns on her head and a sinister scowl on her face. Her hands are painted green claws and she is dressed in a black satin brocade with pink satin trimming on the sleeves, and wears a black lace shawl. This puppet is operated with a 5-piece wooden airplane control and fifteen strings.

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.

Materials, dates and provenance

• date made: 1942
• user: Haines, Elizabeth L.
• user: Haines, Frank D.
• maker: Haines, Elizabeth L.
• maker: Haines, Frank D.
• Object Name: puppet
• Object Type: puppets
• Object Type: marionettes
• Physical Description: fiber, synthetic, rayon (overall material)
• Physical Description: cotton (overall material)
• Physical Description: glass (overall material)
• Physical Description: wood (overall material)
• Physical Description: paint (overall material)
• Physical Description: metal (overall material)
• Measurements: overall: 19 in x 10 in x 4 in; 48.26 cm x 25.4 cm x 10.16 cm
• place made: United States: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
• classified: Puppetry
• ID Number: 2007.0137.004.06
• accession number: 2007.0137
• catalog number: 2007.0137.004.06
• Credit Line: Elizabeth and Frank D. Haines
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.