DA "..] EVOLUTION OP MASKS. 75 



perceptions are well known to be of relatively slow development. How- 

 ever, we can perceive tbat, with the growth of snpernaturalism, tbe 

 emblem of the hero, already merged in the hero-myth, would, from the 

 first, be associated with any formal recognition by the community of its re- 

 lations to the supernatural. Thus masks would take their place among 

 religious paraphernalia, not only of the community in its general direct 

 relations to the supernatural, but in the probably earlier form of such 

 relation through an intermediary individual, in the form of a shaman 

 or his logical predecessors in culture. 



9. On the other hand, it may be supposed that the exhibition of a 

 device popularly associated with ill-success, cowardice, or incapacity in 

 its owner, while liable in time of war to excite aversion, contempt, or 

 even hostility in the other members of the community, might well pro- 

 voke in time of peace the milder form of ridicule, closely allied to scorn, 

 which seems in savagery to constitute the sole rudiment of humor; 

 and that, in time, a certain set of devices, originally segregated in some 

 such manner from the generality, might come to be typical of buffoonery, 

 and to be considered as appropriate to public amusements and rollick- 

 ing communal games. 



10. From such beginnings the application of masks to the purposes 

 of secret societies, associations or special classes of the community in 

 their formal relations to the rest, or to outsiders, is easy to imagine, 

 and no attempt need here be made to trace it in detail. The transition 

 to that stage of culture where masks are merely protections against 

 recognition on festive occasions, or the vehicle of practical jokes at the 

 hands of children or uneducated adults, is long, but presents no diffi- 

 culties. As illustrative of the survival of the earlier stages of the process 

 in a comparatively cultured race to very modern times, the war and 

 other masks, till very lately in vogue among the Chinese, may be alluded 

 to. On the other hand, the theatrical masks of the Japanese belong to 

 a stage of much higher culture both in an aesthetic and moral sense, the 

 idea of terror in connection with them seemingly having quite passed 

 away, their object being to excite amusement or express similitude. 



A process in the development of masks which should be noticed is 

 not unfrequeiitly recognizable in the paraphernalia of aboriginal peoples. 



The original idea of protection for the face, whose evolution in a par- 

 ticular line has been sketched as above, may develop in another way, 

 which would find a termination in the helmet of the middle ages, the 

 idea of mechanical protection either remaining predominant or at some 

 stage of culture coming in again and rendering the moral effect wholly 

 subordinate. Again, after the mask has developed into a social symbol 

 (as in religious ceremonies or games), the idea of rendering the whole 

 panoply more effective (as by indicating a stature greater than that 

 natural to man), or of making it more convenient for singers or orators, 

 has in some cases resulted in raising the mask proper above the face of 

 the wearer to the upper part of the head-dress, with the consequence of 



