Greetings to all, and we hope you enjoy this 2024 end-of-year Newsletter. The staff at
the Castañeda Museum are proud to announce that Gayle Castañeda, our director, had
articles published in a national magazine this year. We want to share one of these
fascinating articles with the public: THE RAMAKIAN OF THAILAND.

The Ramayana is an ancient saga of India, approximately
2000 -3000 years old. In this epic tale, Princess Sita, the
wife of the great warrior prince, Prince Rama, is
kidnapped by the demon king Ravana. In Thailand, the
demon king is called Tosakanth. Over the years, the story
spread throughout southeast Asia, with many variations
occurring. Thailand’s version is called the Ramakian and
has the same basic theme and characters. The Ramakian
is also Thailand’s classical dance-drama, and
performances of varying lengths can be viewed in
theatres and are always popular with the Thai public and
foreign visitors alike. Here is a photo of a performance in
progress in Bangkok, Thailand.

Prince Rama has a loyal ally in Hanuman, the White Monkey General, and he and his great monkey army help Prince Rama rescue
Sita from the clutches of Tosakanth. As an aside, Hanuman, as wonderful and as loyal a friend as he is to Rama, is quite the
ladies’ man, and women seem to find him irresistible! Hanuman had many flirtations along the arduous journey to rescue Sita.
Finally, all ends well with Princess Sita reunited with Prince Rama.

It is quite common to see Rama and Sita dolls for sale in
antique stores and on the Internet, and if traveling to
Bangkok, Thailand, Rama, Sita, and other Ramakian
character dolls can be purchased there. Most of the dolls
appearing in this article were elaborately handmade at a
particular workshop in Bangkok, and some may date from
the 1970’s.

Presented here is the royal couple, with Sita on the left &
Rama on the right. Each doll is approximately 13” tall.

In this photo we see Tosakanth , the demon king,
in the process of abducting the princess. Usually
Tosakanth is depicted with a green face, but with
the princess so close to him, he is feeling very
mellow, and his face has a golden hue.

The princess doll and the demon doll are each
approximately 11” tall.

• As was mentioned previously, Hanuman had a
  sizeable monkey army he commanded, but along the
  way to rescue Princess Sita, quarrels developed
  among some of the higher ranking monkey officers.

• The Hanuman doll, the White Monkey General, is 7”
  tall, and the Hanuman mask is approximately 11” high.

Nilapat, the Black Monkey General, fought bitterly with
Hanuman as to who was superior, but Hanuman won
the challenge. That battle was a side story unto itself!

Here is a 9” doll representing Nilapat.

One of the minor characters in the Ramakian story is
this doll in blue, Waiyabut, a monkey warrior loyal to
Prince Rama. The doll is approximately 9” tall.