528 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1930 



enough to completely hide the operator. The human form assumed 

 at v/ill by all animate creatures is often represented in compound 

 masks just beneath the animal's snout or beak. Often the animal 

 mask is fitted as an outer false face covering the inner mask of 

 human features. During a ceremony the outer mask is made to open 

 up and reveal the inner face. 



Formerly among most primitive peoples the mask was more or 

 less of a personal possession of the shaman or medicine man. Only 

 he could make the masks. Later, anyone might make or use them at 

 will. Still later in our own civilization masks are a staple object of 

 trade, having first lost most of their original significance. Some of 

 the reasons given by the shaman for assuming the spirit of the animal, 

 figuratively speaking, and for donning the features of the animal 

 itself in the form of a mask, are to cure disease, forecast success or 

 lack of success during the coming hunting or fishing season, to ward 

 off danger from enemies, to supplicate the gods for rain to break 

 a drought, to insure production and plentiful supplies. They are 

 always intimately associated with fertility rites. In other words, the 

 use of the mask originated as a purely selfish method of getting the 

 properties of mythical and actual creatures to aid the individual. 

 This is best typified among the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador. A warrior 

 takes possession of his enemy's soul and becomes endowed with all 

 of his strength by the simple process of successfully cutting off the 

 enemy's head. It is then carried suspended from the belt and is a 

 great aid to the Jivaro warrior. A similar belief motivates the 

 Tfugao of Luzon when he goes on a head-hunting expedition. 



As the material of which masks are usually made is limited to cer- 

 tain objects such as wood, basketry, bark, hair, or woven fabrics, gen- 

 erally, there appears to be a remarkable similarity in the maslvs of cer- 

 tain widely separated peoples. Thus the wooden mask of the western 

 Eskimo is practically identical with the wooden mask of the Melane- 

 sians of New Ireland, a remote island in the South Pacific. Or 

 again, a typical wooden mask from Java resembles very much the 

 earthenware masks from western China. The Iroquois Indian mask 

 is very much like that of the Cherokee and other Indian tribes of the 

 Southeastern States, which, in turn, resembles those of the Alaskan 

 Eskimo. Perhaps the closest resemblance is between peoples whose 

 territory joins, as western Eskimo and northwest coast Indians, Mel- 

 anesians and Polynesians. Thus the masks made by the Eskimo of 

 the western Alaskan coast are copied by the Indians of the Yukon 

 Valley. In a collection of 30 masks from Anvik, Alaska, a Tinne 

 village perhaps 50 miles from the nearest Eskimo habitation, identity 

 with western Eskimo masks in form, structure, and use is striking. 

 Not only are the different masks representing different animals iden- 



