362 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



as a relief measure under the Federal Government, the project was 

 carried on for 6 years on two New York reservations: Tonawanda and 

 Cattaraugus. With the help of the few craftsmen who still remembered 

 the old techniques, some of the Iroquois arts were revived: bead 

 weaving, quill embroidery, pottery, and woodcarving. This venture 

 has been moderately successful in reestablishing high standards of 

 workmanship and in providing an outlet for native products, but it 

 must be noted that the initial stimulus came from the outside, and 

 that, for the most part, the market is White rather than Indian, 



MASKS IN IROQUOIS CULTURE 

 ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY 



While it is well established that woodcarving is a traditional 

 Iroquois art dating back to the prehistoric era, there has been con- 

 siderable disagreement among students as to whether the wooden 

 masks or false faces are an indigenous and ancient part of the culture. 



Questions concerning the origin of false faces are but part of the 

 more general historical problem of determining the center of the 

 masking complex in the Eastern United States. According to Dall 

 (1884, p. 145) the use of masks by Indians east of the Mississippi was 

 rare and did not form a prominent part of their festivals or customs. 

 Although this statement is inaccurate, it is true that an uneven dis- 

 tribution of masks prevailed among the tribes of this region. Masks 

 have been recorded only for the Iroquois of New York, the Hurons 

 of southern Ontario and the extinct nations affiliated with them, 

 some of the Algonquian tribes of the Atlantic slope, the Iroquoian- 

 speaking peoples of North Carolina (the Cherokee), the Siouan 

 tribes of the southeast, and the Creek (Seminole). In view of this 

 distribution and the fact that the Iroquois appeared to occupy an 

 intrusive linguistic and cultural position in the northeast, Fenton 

 (1941, p. 416) originally suggested three possibilities: Iroquois 

 masking may be a diagnostic trait pointing to their alleged southern 

 origin; it may be related to northern shamanism and the use of masks 

 across the Arctic littoral; or it may have originated with the Iroquois 

 themselves. He postponed final judgment on this question, but was 

 inclined to believe that the Iroquois acquired their masks from the 

 north and that the immediate source was the Huron tribes. 



Speck's conclusions also are tentative and differ from those of 

 Fenton in that the former considers the Iroquois to have been the 

 agents of diffusion rather than the recipients. His opinion is based on 

 the distribution of masks in relation to the stationary wooden face 

 images which were common throughout the middle Atlantic Coast 

 region. Although the southern coastal Algonquians only had these 



