■^^No-^Tif^^' IROQUOIS MASKS AT ONONDAGA — HENDRY 385 



concerning the treatment of the masks are generally observed by those 

 who use them. 



Accounts of the miraculous cures wi'ought by a particular mask 

 or the unusual powers possessed by another are cited by the Council 

 House people as proof of the positive supernatural attributes of the 

 carvings, while their potentialities for evil are illustrated by stories 

 of what has happened to persons who have been unfortunate enough 

 to offend them. One informant told me of a man whose face became 

 twisted because he had mocked a mask, and another related an incident 

 in which a woman was thrown into convulsions when she laughed at 

 the False Face company. 



The masks which are currently worn by the members of the medicine 

 society are hung together in what is called the "Hodo'wi Room" 

 of the community center. Most of these were made specifically for 

 the last Midwinter festival and aU have been "doctored" ui the ap- 

 proved manner by laying them face up on the floor of the Council 

 House and burning tobacco. Each mask has a bag of tobacco at- 

 tached to it and shows evidence of having been fed with corn mush. 

 The zeal of the Indians in carrying out the prescribed forms extends 

 even to those masks which are no longer in their possession. Al- 

 lison Thomas told me that he and some of the other carvers intend to 

 visit the Albany museum to "pay our respects to the old fellows up 

 there." Because those masks have been neglected for many years 

 they need to be talked to and propitiated with tobacco. 



Yet despite the declarations of faith and the careful observance 

 of the traditional customs, there is some evidence that the old be- 

 liefs have faded or changed. Very few of my informants ever referred 

 to the supernatural beings which the masks represent. This omission 

 may have arisen from a reluctance to reveal information of a sacred 

 nature to an outsider rather than from ignorance, although there 

 was little reticence in discussing the religious function of the masks. 

 Those few who did mention the Hodo'wi by name tended to do so 

 in the past tense. I was told that they used to live on the edge 

 of the reservation, that they used to be seen occasionally in the woods, 

 that the old people used to dream about them; always with the im- 

 plication that these events had taken place in the distant past. One 

 young carver made his doubts about the existence of these spirits 

 quite explicit when he observed that although he had been on every 

 part of the reservation, he had never been able to find one. It was 

 this same man who openly expressed skepticism about the eflBcacy of 

 the False Face rituals. In telling me of a ceremony which had been 

 given for him when he was a child, he wound up with the statement, 

 "I did get well, but of course I had been sick a long time and was 

 due to get weU anyway." 



