400 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



The False-faces raise some problems of theoretical importance. 

 We may, as G olden vceiser suggested," consider the wood-carving 

 process from the standpoint of technique and artistic styles; or we 

 may consider the organization of the Society of Faces (the False-face 

 Company) and its relation to other medicine fraternities and show 

 how their function is in turn patterned by the concept of reciprocal 

 services between the dual division of Iroquois society. Thus every 

 ceremony is conceived as being given by one half of the tribe for its 

 cousins, the opposite half. 



Finally, when we speak of masks, we must always remember, as 

 Hewitt ^^ stoutly insisted, that the "Faces" are really "likenesses," 

 in the sense that they are portraits of mythological beings, and they 

 are not masks for the purpose of concealment. The mask itself is 

 only a symbol which operates on the principle of substituting a part 

 for the whole, and the wearer behaves as if he were the supernatural 

 being whom he impei-sonates. These supematurals are Wind or Dis- 

 ease Gods of two classes and several varieties, and they are por- 

 trayed by wooden or husk faces that are described in the myths, 

 but their human counterparts show a great deal of individual 

 variation. 



The need of an adequate study. — Our extensive collections of Iro- 

 quois masks are frequently undocumented or labelled so as to con- 

 form to rather dubious sources and in direct contradiction to the 

 concepts which the Iroquois themselves hold regarding the masks 

 and their function. Instead of catalog entries, the masks are at- 

 tended with a lore that has come down through successive curators 

 as to their supposed function. It is therefore not strange that the 

 functions which have been ascribed to the masks on the basis of 

 their appearance and the classification that has grown up in the 

 museum differ from the ideas entertained by the Iroquois who still 

 use them. At some time in the past two streams of culture have 

 diverged, and I feel that the Iroquois have been the less speculative 

 and therefore the more trustworthy custodians of tradition. That 

 such confusion exists in the face of a rather extensive literature on 



" Prof. A .A. Goldenwelser and P. W. Waugh studied the Iroquois at Grand River for 

 the National Museum of Canada following 1912. Masks interested both men : their 

 role in society and the development of artistic styles intrigued Goldenweiser, the sociol- 

 ogist ; while for Waugh, masks were part of material culture. Both men Joined forces 

 to record the carving process. Goldenweiser, A. A., On Iroquois Work, 1912. Summ. Rep. 

 Geol. Surv. Canada for the calendar year 1912, pp. 474-475. 



^ J. N. B. Hewitt during many years of field work was Interested In the problem of the 

 "Faces." Ills informants, Chiefs John A. Gibson, Joshua and John Buck, Jr., were the 

 best available among the Iroquois of Grand River. Neither his publications (Seneca 

 fiction . . . (with Jeremiah Curtain), 32d Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 61, 67, 

 1918 : Iroquoian cosmology, pt. 2, 43d Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 533, 610, 1928 ; 

 The culture of the Indians of eastern Canada, Expl. and Field-work Smithsonian Inst, in 

 1928, p. 182, 1929; and ibid., 1929. p. 201, 1930) nor his manuecripts on the Faces 

 provide the least support for Mrs. Converse's imaginative titles. 



