7G MASKS AND LABRETS. 



gradually losing the apertures for sight and the breathing hole, theu uo 

 longer needed. The mask theu becomes a more or less conventional- 

 ized model of the face, or even of the whole figure or a group of figures. 

 This stage is recognized in the Moqui masks figured, which have be- 

 come head-dresses, worn as in the doll, also illustrated ; or even with a 

 mask, properly so called, worn over the face beneath in addition. This 

 is also shown in many Tlinkit head-dresses and others of Mexico, Peru, 

 and of the western Iunuit. 



Still another line of evolution is that in which the ideas symbolized 

 by a mask reach such a stage of identification with it that a wearer, to 

 give life-like motion to the total effigy, is no longer required by the im- 

 agination. The mask may then be set up as an independent object of at- 

 tention. It may be iu this case associated with the bodies of the dead 

 as in Peruvian graves, or erected in connection with religious rites; 

 a practice widely spread and not to be confounded with statues or idols 

 which approach the same end by a different path ; or finally be attached 

 to the altar or building devoted to such rites. In the last case weight 

 is of no consequence and, in general, durability is of importance, from 

 whence are derived the stone models of faces or stone masks of which 

 Mexico and the Caribbean Islands have afforded such remarkable ex- 

 amples. 



Other aud less clearly kindred customs are those, prevalent in the 

 same geographical lines (though widely spread elsewhere as well), in 

 which the actual face or head, with more or less of its integuments, is 

 preserved and ornamented. The probabilities are against the direct 

 connection of this practice with the evolution of the artificial mask, but 

 these preparations are frequently termed masks, especially when the 

 back part of the cranium is removed, and therefore deserve notice, as 

 well on that account as because of their partly parallel distribution. 



