424 ANNUAL REPORT S^nTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



mask red; but if he found the tree and commenced carving after 

 noon, the mask would be black. This color symbolism originates with 

 tlie theory of morning and afternoon appearance of the giant, world- 

 rim resident. During his daily westward journey following the path 

 of the sun, his face would appear red in the morning and dark in the 

 afternoon when the sun is behind him. For the long hair which 

 falls on either side to his knees, the mask maker attaches to the fore- 

 head horsetails, tanned with deer brains. 



RITUAL EQUIPMENT 



The False-face Company carry wooden staves and employ tliree 

 instruments : The typical mud-turtle rattle, a folded bark rattle, or a 

 billet of wood. On lat« spring evenings, before summer heat peels 

 the turtle's shell, Indians watch for turtles about the ponds and creeks. 

 In the evening one may meet an Indian bearing a burlap sack con- 

 taining a turtle, or he carries it by the tail ; he is bound to the house 

 of a friend who "can fix it" for a rattle. The rattle maker cuts off 

 the turtle's tail or severs the jugular vein and hangs it to drain. 

 Later, he eviscerates and cures it. He sews up the apertures left 

 by removing the rear limbs and inserts a handful of cherry pits. 

 He stretches the neck over a pine stick which extends from in- 

 side the shell to the base of the skull where it is notched. He 

 sews the front rents. Cutting three hickory splints, he inserts one 

 in the sternum, cutting it off under the jaw, and he inserts two lateral 

 splints in the back of the shell, terminating them on top of the head. 

 He binds the splints to the neck with basswood fiber, a withe of inner 

 elm bark, or rawhide, commencing at the shell and whipping toward 

 the head. A ten-inch rattle is best for singing, but the mammoth 

 turtle rattles lend awe to the doorkeepers at curing rites and small 

 turtle rattles furnish comedy for little boys playing beggars (pi. 23, 

 fig.l). 



For the bark rattles, a cylinder of green hickory bark is slit longi- 

 tudinally and peeled around the tree. The maker spreads it at the 

 middle by inserting his thumbs and folds it end to end, placing one 

 curled end inside the other (pi. 23, fig. 2) . A few cherry pits, pebbles, 

 or kernels of corn provide the necessary percussion. He plugs the 

 open end with a corncob and lashes it with a bark withe. A man will 

 make a dozen on a summer afternoon and toss them overhead in the 

 loft to dry. 



At next Midwinter Festival, a band of outlandishly dressed little 

 boys wearing beggar masks may visit him soliciting or pilfering food 

 and tobacco for a feast. He will reward them, and then, reaching 

 overhead, distribute his rattles to those poor youngsters who were 

 unable to locate turtle rattles and carry sticks of kindling. Perhaps 



