Talk to the Hand Throughout history, puppets have done much of our dirty work

摘要

Loose-limbed moral critics, tap-dancing fertility dolls, buffers against mortality: Puppets have acted out our fantasies ever since we began to chafe at the limits of being human. At least 4,000 years ago, large, jointed figures were buried in tombs in both the Indus Valley (now Pakistan) and China. In 500 B.C., Herodotus described puppets in processions honoring Osiris, the Egyptian goddess of life, death, and fertility. Spirit-conjuring shadow figures appeared in India at roughly the same time. And legend has it that 1,000 years ago, a puppet comforted an emperor distraught by the loss of his favorite concubine.