530 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1930 



heavy out-of-door clothing. The ceremonial preparation and eating 

 of ice cream is a trait extending from one end of the Tinne territory 

 to the other, " Ice cream" is a concoction of bear fat, fish oil, prefer- 

 ably deer fat, blueberries or other berries, ceremonially stirred with 

 the hand and arm bared to the elbow, during which time not a soul 

 in the assembled throng is permitted to speak. Snow is slowly 

 mixed with the other ingredients until the whole assumes the creamy 

 pinkness of ice cream. When deer fat is used the preparation is 

 edible enough, but with the addition of rancid oils and fats, more 

 or less putrified, the concoction becomes unpalatable to the uniniti- 

 ated. All night long stories are told about the hawk, the deer, and 

 other animals, the women gladly sharing in the labor of making the 

 ice cream so that their husbands shall have success in hunting. 



The wearing of a mask is the usual method of impersonating the 

 animal counterpart of a mythical human-animal being. When the 

 American Indian impersonates a butt'alo or a bear he puts the skin 

 of the head over his own head and looks out through the eye holes. 

 The effect is heightened by having the whole skin falling over the 

 shoulders of the wearer and down the back. When' a wooden image 

 of a bear head is carved, the northwest coast Indian impersonates 

 the bear and skillfully increases the illusion by growling and walk- 

 ing about bear fashion. 



The antiquity of the animal dance is evidenced by many etchings 

 and paintings on rocks of cave walls and of cliffs, such an important 

 ceremonial as the Hopi snake dance, which is an ancient prayer for 

 rain, being etched in detail on rock cliffs near Flagstaff, Ariz. The 

 so-called Katchina mask occurs as a rock etching or painting 

 throughout a wide area of the Southwest. 



Most of the masks used by primitive peoples depend upon the en- 

 vironment for the material of which they are shaped. Thus the 

 West Indian Arawak developed a culture in stone not native to their 

 ancestral home in the forested lowlands of South America. This 

 art culminated in the stone maskettes of Porto Rico and Santo 

 Domingo. Similarly we may refer to the high development of wood 

 carving among the tribes of the Pacific Northwest coast region. 

 Reaching its highest development somewhere in southeast Alaska or 

 British Columbia, this extensive art area extended as far north as 

 the Arctic coast of Alaska and as far south as central California. 

 Throughout this entire area the use of masks prevailed. Another 

 extensive area in the development of masks was ancient Mexico. 

 Here, however, as in the West Indies, we again find a development 

 of sculptured forms in stone. Iji the Old World — that is, in China, 

 India, and in the outlying districts of Hindu culture — masks play 

 an important part even to-day. The use of earthenware and of 

 leather in the shaping of masks is characteristic of this area. Here 



