The white monkey of the Reamker.
ហនុមាន · Ha · nu · man
Cast by hand · Painted by you
$37.50, for the mask, five pots of colour, a brush and the story card.
ហនុមាន · Cambodia
General of the monkey army. Warrior, lover, trickster. His face has been worn in Cambodian temple courtyards for centuries. It arrives here blank for the first time.
Hanuman reached Cambodia from India, and the Khmer made him their own. The Reamker, rieamker, the Glory of Rama, is Cambodia's telling of the Ramayana, and it departs from the Sanskrit source in ways that say a lot about the people who adapted it.
Where the Hindu Hanuman is celibate and single-minded, the Khmer Hanuman has a romantic life, a sense of humour and a real talent for getting into trouble. He is more fun and considerably less obedient.
The earliest evidence of his mask is in inscriptions from the late tenth century under Jayavarman V. His acrobatic form turns up earlier still on the bas-reliefs of Angkor Wat and the Bayon, frozen mid-leap in sandstone five centuries before the French arrived to be astonished by it.
Le Petit Journal, 24 June 1906 · King Sisowath’s dancers at Marseille
A Lakhon Khol mask is a full helmet built over a clay mould. Craftsmen lay on sheet after sheet of papier-mâché, model the jewels and foliage in wax directly onto the surface, then seal the whole thing in lacquer tapped from Melanorrhea laccifera trees in Kratie. Gold leaf goes on last.
Colour is a language rather than a decision. Green for Rama. Yellow for Lakshmana. Brick red for Ravana. White for Hanuman and his eighteen monkey warriors. Every performer is identifiable across a temple courtyard at night by firelight, which is exactly what the system is for.
Wearing the mask, the dancer is understood to become the deity rather than to represent him. Dancers say mastering the Hanuman role can take a lifetime, and they do not say it as a figure of speech.
Hanuman and Sovann Machha · Danseuses du Roi, Phnom Penh
The Khmer Rouge came very close to ending it. Between 1975 and 1979 masters were killed, costumes burned and lineages cut. Only the troupe at Wat Svay Andet came through intact.
The reconstruction was led by Princess Norodom Buppha Devi, who spent decades putting back what had been lost, working from the memories of the few who survived.
UNESCO inscribed the Royal Ballet of Cambodia in 2008. In 2018 Lakhon Khol Wat Svay Andet joined the Urgent Safeguarding List. Audiences at recent festival performances have run past 120,000 people.
The dancers before the President at the Élysée Palace
Wearing the mask, the dancer is not playing the god. He is the god, and everybody in the courtyard agreed to that beforehand.
The Hanuman that arrives at your door is poured by hand in our own plaster, finished smooth, and sent out with no colour on it at all. Every line the carvers agreed on is still there under your thumb.
Paint him the traditional way, white face and gold crown and the colours of the Reamker. Or paint him the way your kid sees him. There is no wrong answer, and a share of every one sold goes back to the free art classes that started this.
Mask Nº 01 · Cambodia · 2027
Hanuman
The white monkey of the Reamker.
Premium plaster, one at a time, in the house on the Siem Reap River.
No colour. The sculpt is the guide: raised edges catch the brush and hold it where it belongs.
The traditional way, the colours of the Reamker. Or a way no Khmer dancer ever has. Nobody here will mind.
Mask per box
Pots of colour
One mask, five pots of colour, one real brush, a story card. Nestled in a foam tray inside a coloured box. Every mask in the collection ships the same way.
The box, open · Temple orange, foam tray, story card
Cast by hand in premium plaster at the house in Siem Reap. Every carved line of the original is there in relief before a brush touches it.
Water-based colour, non-toxic, off a table with a damp cloth. The five change per mask to match the tradition it comes from.
Real fibre, real spring. The kind you keep in the pencil pot long after the mask is finished and on a shelf.
What the mask is in its own tradition, before we cast a copy in plaster and sent it out white.
Yes. Water-based, non-toxic, and it comes off skin and off a table with a damp cloth. Built for a kitchen table on a Sunday.
A story card with the history and the traditional colours, so you know what you are looking at. No paint-by-numbers. The mask ships white on purpose.
Resin is cheaper to ship and it feels like a phone case. Plaster takes paint properly, keeps a sharp edge on every carved line, and has the weight that puts a thing on a shelf instead of in a drawer.
In 2027. When it opens it ships from stock, next business day, with no waiting list.
Yes, and we would like that. Minimum order is one case of four, prepaid, and you can collect from the office in Siem Reap if that suits you better than freight. Full pricing and terms sit behind a trade login. Write to us with the name of the shop and we will send a code the same day.
Hanuman lands in 2027. Leave your email and you will know the day it does.