394 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



mon as any other shape, although he had made them oblong on his 

 two previous masks. He charged me $2, the standard price for a 

 maskette of this size, and later gave me some Indian tobacco in a 

 matchbox so that I could care for it in the proper fashion. 



The frame of mind in which the carvers approach the problem of 

 making a mask seems to be that expressed by Thomas in his comment, 

 "It forms as I make it." Several of the men said that they occa- 

 sionally drew a sketch before starting to carve or outlined the fea- 

 tures on the wood with a pencil, but they made it clear that this was 

 not their usual method of procedure. The others declared that no 

 preparation of this nature was necessary and aU of them, even those 

 who admitted that they sometimes worked from a drawing, said 

 they never knew what kind of a mask they were going to make when 

 they started and had no idea how it would turn out until it was 

 finished. "I never have any plan when I start, no ideas at all. 

 Funny, it just comes to you as you go along." "I just go to work and 

 let it turn out as it will." "The first piece I made I didn't even 

 outline it in pencil. Just drilled the eyes and started digging in." 



It is difficult to say how literally these statements can be taken. 

 Certainly a great deal of planning and thought goes into the creation 

 of a mask, and the comment, "I didn't even outline it" suggests that 

 outlining is in fact a common practice and not an exception. However, 

 it is not necessary to assume that the analysis of the esthetic problem 

 always takes place on a conscious level. The way in which Thomas 

 worked, without sketches, handling his tools with skill and moving 

 swiftly from one step to the next, seems to indicate that he was draw- 

 ing upon a vocabulary of forms with which he was so thoroughly 

 familiar that he seldom needed to stop to make a conscious choice. 

 The result was a mask which, like most of those that are carved today, 

 was well within the limits of the Iroquois style. This conservatism 

 combined with the apparent lack of a carefully worked out plan can 

 best be attributed to the fact that the patterns of art are largely 

 unconscious and that the carvers fail to realize how deeply they have 

 been conditioned to the traditional forms which, with some modi- 

 fications, they invariably repeat. 



When questioned specifically as to where they obtained their ideas 

 or designs for masks, each carver mentioned at least one of the three 

 sources from which their knowledge of the traditional forms is de- 

 rived — the mythology, the literature, or the old masks. Lee Thomas 

 said that he sometimes made his carvings in accordance with the 

 origin legend, depicting the twisted mouth and broken nose of the 

 first False Face. Allison cited the illustrations and descriptions of 

 masks in the publications of Wissler, Beauchamp, Speck, and Fenton 

 which are kept in the Hodo'm room of the community center. The 



