'^°No™74/'''^' IROQUOIS MASKS AT ONONDAGA — ^HENDRY 405 



excellent opportunity for comparative research, as the same tradi- 

 tional art can be investigated in a variety of sociocultural settings. 

 A comparison of Onondaga with Cattaraugus Reservation, which 

 approximates St. Regis in its population size and relatively isolated 

 location, but differs in being less acculturated, might reveal more 

 clearly the conditions which promote or hinder the commercializa- 

 tion of masks. Is it, as has been suggested, proximity to a large 

 city which provides a more secure and profitable means of subsistence 

 than the handicrafts, or are there other, more important, determinants? 

 What is the effect of commercialization upon style? Fenton has re- 

 ported the development of new types of masks at Cattaraugus and 

 Tonawanda which may be a response to the demands of the tourist 

 market. At Onondaga, however, any outside pressure upon the style 

 seems to be of a sort that restricts innovation, because it is assumed 

 that White buyers want false faces that "look Indian." For problems 

 of this kind, comparative studies are essential. At the same time, the 

 underlying unity of behavior and values that constitutes Iroquois 

 culture regardless of reservation differences makes it reasonable to 

 suspect that a conscious wish to preserve Indian identity plays a part 

 in maskmaking wherever it survives among these people. 



There remains the broader question of the extent to which retentions 

 in language, government, and religion, other than the False Face 

 Society, are nativistic in character. Again, no definitive answer is 

 possible as fieldwork at Onondaga was too brief to permit an analysis 

 of the total community. Recent developments in Iroquois culture, 

 however, suggest that further research would have revealed the answer 

 to be an affirmative one. In his series of articles, Edmund Wilson 

 (1960) describes what he calls a nationalistic movement taking place 

 on all Iroquois reservations in response to increasing pressure from 

 White society over the last 2 years. On the economic and political 

 level the movement involves resistance to encroachments on reserva- 

 tion lands and bitter battles in the courts over what the Indians regard 

 as abrogation of their legal rights as a sovereign people. Accompany- 

 ing this resistence is a reawakening of pride in the Iroquois past which is 

 leading to a revival of the spirit of the League and a new interest in 

 the Longhouse religion. At Allegany there is even talk among the 

 more extreme nationalists of bringing back the White Dog ceremony, 

 and among the young men of St. Regis, the fashion of wearing "scalp- 

 locks" has been revived as a sign of Iroquois patriotism. 



No such large-scale or dramatic revitalization movement was evi- 

 dent at Onondaga in 1950, but there were indications of a need for 

 self-identification and an effort to find it in traditional symbols. The 

 maskmakers exemplified these characteristics, and it has been pointed 

 out that people who orient toward the old cultural forms in one 



