CARNIVALS IN MANY LANDS 239 



jamong South American tribes. Only the mask dances 

 bf the Tequna, the Zuni, and the Uaupe races are 

 inaentioned casually in literature. The temples and 

 idols alluded to by the old Jesuit missionaries are 

 3ft en nothing but medicine-huts, or flute-players' houses, 

 where are kept the mysterious mask costumes. These 

 mask dances are of peculiar interest because of their 

 istriking similarity to those of the Melanesians as 

 ; regards the forms of the mask and other customs of 

 the dance. 



The dance masks represent animals only ; but the 

 'representation of animal forms is not carried so far 

 among the Karaya as it is in the case of the masks 

 of the North American aborigines and the Tequna, 

 as the particular animal sought to be represented is 

 indicated only by some of its most striking charac- 

 teristics and not by the form of the mask outfit, or 

 certain parts of the paraphernalia may suggest what 

 animal is being represented. 



The masquerade outfits are used singly or in pairs, 

 and are divided, according to their forms, into three 

 classes. The first are suits and headgears of simple 

 or plain braided palm- leaves. The second class is a 

 cylindrical dance hood which looks like a sheaf of 

 wild hay inverted over the head, which it completely 

 obscures, while the upper part of the sheaf .tapers to 

 a point about two feet above the head, and is over- 

 laid with beautiful feather mosaics, patterned to suggest 

 the creatures the primitive masqueraders desire to repre- 

 sent, such as certain fish or birds. The third class does 

 not bear any representations or emblems of animals. 

 To this class belongs what is called the blackbird 

 mask, though this is a human face, made from a large 



