Wikipedia

Nala Damajanti

Nala Damajanti was the stage name of Mathilde Marie Amelia Poupon (4 or 5 July 1861 – 17 June 1944), a French snake charmer who performed throughout Europe and the United States during the late nineteenth century. After learning the art of snake charming from her husband, acrobat John Palmer, she toured with P. T. Barnum's circus and later appeared at the Folies Bergère in Paris.[1][2]

Nala Damajanti
Promotional poster of Nala Damajanti holding a snake
Promotional poster for Nala Damajanti at the Folies Bergère, c. 1886
Born
Mathilde Marie Amelia Poupon

(1861-07-04)July 4, 1861
Nantey, Jura, France
DiedJune 17, 1944(1944-06-17) (aged 82)
New York City, U.S.
Other namesMala Damajaute
Nata Damajaute
Nala Damajante
OccupationSnake charmer
Years activec. 1880s–1890s
Known forSnake-charming performances with P. T. Barnum's circus and at the Folies Bergère; promotional posters that influenced later depictions of Mami Wata
Spouses
  • John Palmer (m. 1886; died 1896)
  • William John Kruyt (m. 1900)

Her promotional posters became some of the best-known images of nineteenth-century snake charmers and are thought to have influenced later depictions of the African water spirit Mami Wata. She also performed under the variant stage names Mala Damajaute, Nata Damajaute, and Nala Damajante.[3][4]

Early life

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Mathilde Marie Amelia Poupon was born in Nantey, Jura, France, on 4 or 5 July 1861; the sources differing by one day. She was the daughter of Xavier Poupon and Madeleine Perrodin.[5][1]

By 1881, at about 20 years old, Poupon was working as a governess for a French family in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire. There she met John Palmer, a ceiling-walking acrobat. Palmer introduced her to the art of snake charming, which became the foundation of her performing career.[1]

Career

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After developing her skills, Poupon toured in America and joined Barnum's famous circus troupe in 1885 as Nala Damajanti. She then returned to Paris to perform at the Folies Bergère (debuting on 18 February 1887).[2][6]

The revelation of Poupon's given name was prompted by a lawsuit, in which the plaintiff had confused her with another person. As Poupon was scheduled to depart for Hamburg in the near future, with her eight enormous boas, she allowed her true identity to be revealed to have the case resolved as soon as possible.[1]

Henry Drewal indicated that in Hamburg, Germany, a professional animal dealer named Breitwieser[7] who often worked as a specialist snake procurer with the Tierpark Hagenbeck, a famous zoo in Hamburg, returned from a supposed trip to Asia with a new wife who performed as a snake charmer under the name of Maladamajaute, starting around 1880.[3]

Drewal supposed that she might have come from Samoa or Borneo. Lademann-Priemer goes to some lengths to demonstrate the possibility of this idea.[8] Lorenz Hagenbeck, son of Carl Hagenbeck, the zoo's founder, recalled in his autobiography that Breitwieser's wife had "done stage business with snakes" and that Breitwieser had been a showman at one time.[9]

Carl Hagenbeck fondly recalled her in a section of his 1909 autobiography Von Tieren und Menschen,[10] though in the 1912 abridged English translation, that portion was omitted.[11] Hagenbeck refers to her as a "Provençalin" (a native of Provence). He further relates that she married an (unnamed) circus ceiling-walker, and they developed an innovative snake taming technique that allowed them to create an extremely successful act that toured America under the name Nala Damajante to much acclaim.

On 4 October 1884, "Nala Damajanta" published a notice in the New York Clipper that she had severed her relationship with her manager John Palmer. On 11 October, John Palmer (son of prominent ceiling-walker James Palmer) published a notice in the same publication that "Nala Damajanta (so called) whom I had engaged for the last three years" had severed their business relationship unilaterally. He asserted his rights to the name under that and other spellings and stated that he had engaged another performer from Europe to come to America and continue the act. In 1894, Palmer was still managing the act[12] and was referred to as "husband of Nala Damajanti" in his 1896 obituary.[13]

Marketing and public image

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From the beginning of her performing career in the early 1880s, Poupon was promoted less as a French performer than as an exotic snake charmer from the East. Although later records established that she was born Emilie (Mathilde Marie Amelia) Poupon in France in 1861, advertisements consistently described her as a Hindu woman. Even her stage name formed part of the illusion, combining the names of the Mahabharata's Nala and Damayanti. Her publicity reflected the Orientalist themes popular in European and American entertainment during the late nineteenth century.[14]

As her reputation grew, so did the mythology surrounding her origins. In January 1884, at about age 22, she told the Daily Alta California that she had been born in the "French settlements of Judea". The reporter remarked that her English was so limited that "no attempt is made here to reproduce her queer pronunciation and phraseology", reinforcing her carefully cultivated foreign persona.[15] Later that year, a humorous anecdote published in Puck reported that, while touring with the Forepaugh Circus, she jokingly claimed to be from Connecticut.[16]

She continued to present different versions of her background as her career progressed. In 1885, at age 23 or 24, while appearing at Madison Square Garden in New York, she told the New York Tribune that she had been born in one of the "French provinces of India" and that her father had been "a hunter of wild beasts for native and European menageries". Her husband, John Palmer, translated much of the interview because of her strong French accent.[17] Nearly a decade later, in 1894, while performing at the Palace Theatre, London, she instead claimed to be a native of Pondicherry.[18]

Her appearance became just as important as the stories told about her. Carl Hagenbeck later remembered her as having an "extraordinarily graceful figure", large dark eyes and unusually long dark hair, qualities echoed in her promotional posters.[19] After her debut at the Folies Bergère in Paris in 1887, at age 25, those posters became some of the best-known images associated with snake charmers. One was later described as "one of the most beautiful" produced for the theatre, and reproductions have remained popular into the twenty-first century.[20]

La Charmeuse de serpents by Henri Rousseau (1907)

The image created for Poupon ultimately proved more enduring than the act itself. Art historian Henry Drewal has argued that her famous snake-charmer poster became one of the principal visual sources for later depictions of the African water spirit Mami Wata and the Dominican spiritual figure Santa Marta la Dominadora.[3][21] By 1907, while she was still alive and in her mid-forties, the same imagery is thought to have inspired the French automaton La Charmeuse de Serpent, produced by Roullet & Decamps, and may also have influenced Henri Rousseau's painting La Charmeuse de serpents (The Snake Charmer).[22][23]

Marriage and relationships

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On 20 April 1886, at 24 years old, Poupon married John Palmer at St John the Evangelist, Walworth, Surrey, England.[24]

After John Palmer's death, Poupon married William John Kruyt on 4 April 1900 in Soho, London, England. They later immigrated to the United States, where she usually went by the name Mathilda Kruit. [citation needed]

Death

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She died in New York City at the age of 83 on 17 June 1944.[25]

Notes and references

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  1. 1 2 3 4 "Chronique des Tribunaux". Le Gaulois (in French). 17 March 1887. p. 2.
  2. 1 2 "Petit Courrier". Le Gaulois (in French). 18 February 1887. p. 4.
  3. 1 2 3 Drewal, Henry John (2013). "Beauteous Beast: The Water Deity Mami Wata in Africa". In Mittman, Asa Simon; Dendle, Peter J. (eds.). The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous. Farnham: Ashgate. p. 90. ISBN 9781472418012.
  4. ↑ Garcia Catalyud, Carmen (2013). "Miss Damajaute". Comentarios de Chapito (in Spanish). 18. Union de Profesionales y Amigos de las Artes Circenses: 32–33. Retrieved 8 March 2014.
  5. ↑ Archives départementales du Jura (Lons-le-Saunier), État civil, 1790–1912.
  6. ↑ Berry-Waite, Lisa (2024-06-24). "Women Performers, their Writhing Reptiles and that Wrought Indian Connection – Debanjali Biswas". Women's History Network. Retrieved 2026-07-04.
  7. ↑ Probably Heinrich Breitwieser (ca. 1864-?), who is listed on a 5 Nov 1901 Hamburg passenger list as a "Tierhändler" bound for Yokohama, see Staatsarchiv Hamburg. Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.
  8. ↑ Lademann-Priemer, Gabriele (2013). "Mami Wata – Muttergottheit und Verführerin, Helferin und Dämon". In Kahl, Werner; Lademann-Priemer, Gabriele (eds.). Lebensstörungen und Heilungen: Traditionelle Verfahren des In-Ordnung-Bringens von Christus bis Mami Wata (PDF) (in German). Hamburg: Missionshilfe Verlag. pp. 26–30.
  9. ↑ Hagenbeck, Lorenz (1956). Animals Are My Life. Translated by Alec Brown. London: The Bodley Head. pp. 25–26. (note Breitwieser spelled as "Breitweiser")
  10. ↑ Hagenbeck, Carl (1909). Von Tieren und Menschen (in German). Berlin-Chiemnitz: Vita. pp. 279–281.
  11. ↑ Hagenbeck, Carl (1912). Beasts and men, being Carl Hagenbeck's experiences for half a century among wild animals. Translated by Hugh S. R. Elliot; A. G. Thacker. London, New York: Longmans, Green, and Co. p. 197. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  12. ↑ "Playing with a Python". Evening Express. No. 2187. Cardiff, Wales. 30 May 1894. p. 1. Retrieved 23 September 2014.
  13. ↑ "Births, Deaths, Marriages and Obituaries". The Era. 25 April 1896. On April 16th, at Dundee, John Palmer, husband of Nala Damajanti
  14. ↑ Berry-Waite, Lisa (2024-06-24). "Women Performers, their Writhing Reptiles and that Wrought Indian Connection – Debanjali Biswas". Women's History Network. Retrieved 2026-07-04.
  15. ↑ "Nala Damajante". Daily Alta California. 9 January 1884. p. 2.
  16. ↑ Lidian (2009). "Snake Charming Women, Part 2: Emily Pompon and the Two Nalas". The Virtual Dime Museum. Archived from the original on 20 October 2010.
  17. ↑ "Woman Who Charms Big Snakes" (PDF). New-York Daily Tribune. 30 March 1885. p. 5.
  18. ↑ "The snake and its master". To-Day. 17 March 1894. p. 181.
  19. ↑ Hagenbeck, Carl (1909). Von Tieren und Menschen (in German). Berlin-Chiemnitz: Vita. pp. 279–281.
  20. ↑ "Nala Damajanti, Snake Charmin' Lady". Vintage Poster Blog. 14 September 2009. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.
  21. ↑ Chireau, Yvonne (12 July 2013). "The Strange Career of Mami Wata". Academic Hoodoo.
  22. ↑ Reyssat, Sophie (11 July 2008). "Les automates, jouets de luxe pour grands enfants". La Gazette Drouot (in French).
  23. ↑ "Histoire d'automates" (Visitors Booklet) (in French). Théâtre des Sablons. 2013.
  24. ↑ "England Marriages, 1538–1973". FamilySearch. Retrieved 10 February 2018. John Palmer and Mathilde Marie Amelia Poupon, 20 April 1886; citing St. John, Walworth, Surrey, England, reference P 89, 177; FHL microfilm 291,747.
  25. ↑ "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795–1949". FamilySearch. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved 6 July 2026. Mathilde Kruit, 1944.
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