The functions and forms of masks
- Key People:
- Wladyslaw Theodor Benda
Many masks are primarily associated with ceremonies that have religious and social significance or are concerned with funerary customs, fertility rites, or the curing of sickness. Other masks are used on festive occasions or to portray characters in a dramatic performance and in reenactments of mythological events. Masks are also used for warfare and as protective devices in particular activities or during inclement weather.
Social and religious uses
As indicated above, masks representing potentially harmful spirits were often used to keep a required balance of power or a traditional relationship of inherited positions within a culture. The forms of these masks invariably were prescribed by tradition, as were their uses. This type of mask was often associated with secret societies, especially in Africa, where the greatest range of types and functions can be found. They were also widely used among Oceanic peoples of the South Pacific and among American Indians.
Masks have served an important role as a means of discipline and have been used to admonish. Common in China, Africa, Oceania, and North America, admonitory masks usually completely cover the features of the wearer. Some African peoples hold that the first mask to be used was an admonitory one. In one version of the mask origin, a child, repeatedly told not to, persisted in following its mother to fetch water. To frighten and discipline the child, the mother painted a hideous face on the bottom of her water gourd. Another version is that the mask was invented by a secret society to escape recognition while punishing marauders. In New Britain, an island of Papua New Guinea, members of a secret terrorist society called the Dukduk appear in monstrous five-foot masks to police, to judge, and to execute offenders. Aggressive supernatural spirits of an almost demonic nature are represented by these masks, which are constructed from a variety of materials, usually including tapa, or bark cloth, and the pith of certain reeds. These materials are painted in brilliant colours, with brick red and acid green predominating.
In many cultures throughout the world, a judge wore a mask to protect him from future recriminations. In this instance, the mask represents a traditionally sanctioned spirit from the past who assumes responsibility for the decision levied on the culprit.
Rituals, often nocturnal, by members of secret societies wearing ancestor masks are reminders of the ancient sanction of their conduct. In many cultures, these masked ceremonies are intended to prevent miscreant acts and to maintain the circumscribed activities of the group. Along the Guinea coast of West Africa, for instance, many highly realistic masks represent ancestors who enjoyed specific cultural roles; the masks symbolize sanction and control when donned by the wearer. Among some Dan and Gere (Ngere, Guere) peoples of Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, ancestor masks with generic features act as intermediaries for the transmission of petitions or offerings of respect to the gods. These traditional ancestral emissaries exert by their spirit power a social control for the community.
Particularly among Oceanic peoples, American Indians, and African peoples, certain times of the year are set aside to honour spirits or ancestors. Among nonliterate peoples who cannot record their own histories, masked rituals act as an important link between past and present, giving a sense of historic continuity that strengthens their social bond. On these occasions, masks usually recognizable as dead chieftains, relatives, friends, or even foes are worn or exhibited. Gifts are made to the spirits incarnated in the masks, while in other instances dancers wearing stylized mourning masks perform the prescribed ceremony.
In western Melanesia, the ancestral ceremonial mask occurs in a great variety of forms and materials. The Sepik River area in north-central New Guinea is the source of an extremely rich array of these mask forms mostly carved in wood, ranging from small faces to large fantastic forms with a variety of appendages affixed to the wood, including shell, fibre, animal skins, seed, flowers, and feathers. These masks are highly polychromed with earth colours of red and yellow, lime white, and charcoal black. They often represent supernatural spirits as well as ancestors and therefore have both a religious and a social significance.
Members of secret societies usually conduct the rituals of initiation, a time during which young people are instructed in their future roles as adults and are acquainted with the rules controlling the social stability of the group. Totem and spiritualistic masks are donned by the elders at these ceremonies. Sometimes the masks used are reserved only for initiations. Among the most impressive of the initiation masks are the exquisitely carved human faces of west-coast African peoples. In western and central Democratic Republic of the Congo, large colourful helmetlike masks are used as a masquerading device when the youth emerges from the initiation area and is introduced to the villagers as an adult of the tribe. After a lengthy ordeal of teaching and initiation rites, for instance, a Pende youth appears in a distinctive colourful mask indicative of his new role as an adult. The mask is later cast aside and replaced by a small ivory duplicate, worn as a charm against misfortune and as a symbol of manhood.
Believing everything in nature to possess a spirit, humans found authority for themselves and their families by identifying with a specific nonhuman spirit. They adopted objects of nature; then they mythologically traced their ancestry back to the chosen object and preempted the animal as the emblem of themselves and their clan. This is totemism, which consolidates family pride and distinguishes social lines. Masks are made to house the totem spirit. The totem ancestor is believed actually to materialize in its mask; thus, masks are of the utmost importance in securing protection and bringing comfort to the totem clan.
The Papuans of New Guinea build mammoth masks called hevehe, attaining 20 feet (6 metres) in height. They are constructed of a palm wood armature covered in bark cloth; geometric designs are stitched on with painted cane strips. These fantastic human-animal masks are given a frightening aspect. When mask wearers emerge from the men’s secret clubhouse, they serve to protect the members of the clan. The so-called totem pole of the Northwest Coast Indians of North America fulfills the same function. The African totem mask is often carved from ebony or other hard woods, designed with graceful lines and showing a highly polished surface. Animal masks, their features elongated and formalized, are common in western Africa. Dried grass, woven palm fibres, coconuts, and shells, as well as wood are employed in the masks of New Guinea, New Ireland, and New Caledonia. Represented are fanciful birds, fishes, and animals with distorted or exaggerated features.
High priests and healers, or shamans, frequently had their own powerful totems, in whose masks they could exorcise evil spirits, punish enemies, locate game or fish, predict the weather, and, most importantly, cure disease.
The Northwest Coast Indians in particular devised mechanical masks with movable parts to reveal a second face—generally a human image. Believing that the human spirit could take animal form and vice versa, the makers of these masks fused human and bird or other animal into one mask. Some of these articulating masks acted out entire legends as their parts moved.
Funerary and commemorative uses
In cultures in which burial customs are important, anthropomorphic masks have often been used in ceremonies associated with the dead and departing spirits. Funerary masks were frequently used to cover the face of the deceased. Generally their purpose was to represent the features of the deceased, both to honour them and to establish a relationship through the mask with the spirit world. Sometimes they were used to force the spirit of the newly dead to depart for the spirit world. Masks were also made to protect the deceased by frightening away malevolent spirits.
From the Middle Kingdom (1938–1630 bce) to the 1st century ce, the ancient Egyptians placed stylized masks with generalized features on the faces of their dead. The funerary mask served to guide the spirit of the deceased back to its final resting place in the body. These masks were commonly made of cloth covered with stucco or plaster, which was then painted. For more important personages, silver and gold were used. Among the most splendid examples of the burial portrait mask is the one created about 1350 bce for the pharaoh Tutankhamen. In Mycenaean tombs of about 1400 bce, beaten gold portrait masks were found. Gold masks also were placed on the faces of the dead kings of Cambodia and Siam (now Thailand).
The mummies of Inca royalty wore golden masks. The mummies of lesser personages often had masks that were made of wood or clay. Some of these ancient Andean masks had movable parts, such as the metallic death mask with movable ears that was found in the Temple of the Moon (Huaca de la Luna) at Moche, Peru. The ancient Mexicans made burial masks that seem to be generic representations rather than portraits of individuals.
In ancient Roman burials, a mask resembling the deceased was often placed over the face or was worn by an actor hired to accompany the funerary cortege to the burial site. In patrician families these masks, or imagines, were sometimes preserved as ancestor portraits and were displayed on ceremonial occasions. Such masks were usually modeled over the features of the dead and cast in wax. This technique was revived in the making of effigy masks for the royalty and nobility of Europe from the late Middle Ages through the 18th century. Painted and with human hair, these masks were attached to a dummy dressed in state regalia and were used for display, processionals, or commemorative ceremonies.
From the 17th to the mid-20th century, death masks of famous persons were widespread among Europeans. With wax or liquid plaster of paris, a negative cast of the human face could be produced that in turn acted as a mold for the positive image, frequently cast in bronze. In the 19th century, life masks made in the same manner became popular. Another type of life mask was produced in Al-Fayyum region of Egypt during the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. These were realistic portraits painted in encaustic on wood during a person’s lifetime; when the person died, they were attached directly to the facial area on the mummy shroud.
The skull mask is another form usually associated with funerary rites. The skull masks of the Aztecs, like their wooden masks, were inlaid with mosaics of turquoise and lignite, and the eye sockets were filled with pyrites. Holes were customarily drilled in the back so the mask might be hung or possibly worn. In Melanesia, the skull of the deceased is often modeled over with clay, or resin and wax, and then elaborately painted with designs that had been used ceremonially by the deceased during his lifetime.
Therapeutic uses
Masks have played an important part in magico-religious rites to prevent and to cure disease. In some cultures, the masked members of secret societies could drive disease demons from entire villages. Among the best known of these groups was the False Face Society of the Iroquois people. These professional healers performed violent pantomimes to exorcise the dreaded gahadogoka gogosa (demons who plagued the Iroquois). They wore grimacing, twisted masks, often with long wigs of horsehair. Metallic inserts often were used around the eyes to catch the light of the campfire and the moon and to prevent surprise attacks from invisible evil forces.
Masks for protection from disease include the measles masks worn by Chinese children and the cholera masks worn by the Chinese and Burmese during epidemics. The disease mask is most developed among the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, where 19 distinct sickness demon masks have been devised. These masks are of ferocious aspect, fanged, and with fiendish eyes. Gaudily coloured and sometimes having articulating jaws, they present a dragonlike appearance.
Masks have long been used in military connections. A war mask will have a malevolent expression or hideously fantastic features to instill fear in the enemy. The ancient Greeks and Romans used battle shields with grotesque masks (such as Gorgon masks) or attached terrifying masks to their armour, as did Chinese warriors. Grimacing menpō, or half masks (generally covering the face below the eyes), were used by Japanese samurai.
Many sports require the use of masks. These are usually merely functional, protective devices such as the masks worn by fencers, baseball catchers, and skiers. Under the influence of horror movies and cartoon supervillains, goalie masks in professional ice hockey are often richly painted or designed to look creepy. This posturing is not an invention of the 21st century. To protect their faces in sports events and tournaments of arms, horsemen of the Roman army attached highly decorative and symbolic masks to their helmets.
Perhaps the earliest use of masks was in connection with hunting. Disguise masks were seemingly used in the early Stone Age in stalking prey and later to house the slain animal’s spirit in the hope of placating it. The traditional animal masks worn by the Altaic and Tungusic shamans in Siberia are strictly close to such prehistoric examples as the image of the so-called Sorcerer in Trois Frères cave in Ariège, France.
Since agricultural societies first appeared in prehistory, the mask has been widely used for fertility rituals. The Iroquois, for instance, used corn husk masks at harvest rituals to give thanks for and to achieve future abundance of crops. Perhaps the most renowned of the masked fertility rites held by Native Americans are those still performed by the Hopi and Zuni peoples of the American Southwest. Together with masked dancers representing clouds, rain spirits, stars, earth mother, sky god, and others, the shaman takes part in elaborate ceremonies designed to ensure crop fertility. Spirits called katsinas (kachinas), who—tradition holds—first brought rain to the Pueblo tribes, are said to have left their masks behind when sent to dwell in the bottom of a desert lake. The masked dancers embody the return of the kachinas to help bring the rain.
Cylindrical masks, covering the entire head and resting on the shoulders, are of a primal type. They are made of leather and are humanized by the addition of hair and a variety of adjuncts. Eyes are represented by incisions or by buckskin balls filled with deer hair and affixed to the mask. The nose is often of rolled buckskin or corncob. Frequently the mask has a projecting wooden cylinder for a bill or a gourd stem cut with teeth for a snout. Horns are attached to some masks. Many colours are used in their painting; plumes and beads are attached, and the sex of the mask is distinguished by its shape: round head indicates male, and square indicates female. In the western Sudan area of Africa, many peoples have masked fertility ceremonies. The segoni-kun masks that are fashioned by the Bambara in Mali are aesthetically among the most interesting. Antelopes, characterized by their elegant simplicity, are carved in wood and affixed to woven fibre caps that are hung with raffia and cover the wearer. The antelope is believed to have introduced agriculture, and so, when crops are sown, members of Tyiwara society cavort in the fields in pairs to symbolize fertility and abundance.
Festive uses
Masks for festive occasions are still commonly used. Ludicrous, grotesque, or superficially horrible, festival masks are usually conducive to good-natured license, release from inhibitions, and ribaldry. These include the Halloween, Mardi Gras, or “masked ball” variety. The disguise is assumed to create a momentary, amusing character, often resulting in humorous confusions, or to achieve anonymity for the prankster or reveler.
Throughout contemporary Europe and Latin America, masks are associated with folk festivals, especially those generated by seasonal changes or marking the beginning and end of the year. Among the most famous of the folk masks are those worn to symbolize the driving away of winter in parts of Austria and Switzerland. In Mexico and Guatemala, annual folk festivals employ masks for storytelling and caricature, such as for the Dance of the Old Men and the Dance of the Moors and the Christians. The Eskimo (Inuit) make masks with comic or satiric features that are worn at festivals of merrymaking, as do the Igbo of Nigeria.
