dall.i ALEUTIAN MASKS. 141 



Various curved lines were lightly chiseled or paiuted on the cheeks 

 in many cases. A small round bar extended from side to side within. 

 The ends, projecting through the mask below the corners of the mouth, 

 look as if labrets were intended to be indicated, but this is a mere ac- 

 cident, as this sort of mask never has labrets and the ordinary kind ex- 

 hibited only the median and not lateral labrets. The bar referred to 

 was held iu the teeth, as the marks of biting testify. Various holes 

 about the edges were used for inserting feathers or little wooden pend- 

 ants gaily painted. These masks exhibit great ingenuity and skill in 

 carving, when we consider that it was all done with stone and bone 

 tools. The nose, being the thickest portion, is longest preserved, and 

 there must have been fifty such noses in the debris which covered the 

 floor of the cave. Such shaped noses I have observed only once on 

 masks not from Aleut caves. In that case the mask was one used in 

 Shamanic ceremonial from the Nushagak Eiver, Bristol Bay, collected 

 by Mr. McKay. 



The most remarkable thing about these masks is that they bear no 

 resemblance whatever to the Aleutian physiognomy, though they agne 

 very well in type among themselves. On the other hand, the masks for 

 ordinary dances, not religious, are excellent illustrations of the Aleutian 

 type of face. Thus, figure A, from Billings' voyage, is a thoroughly 

 characteristic Aleutian face, and even the grotesque one figured by its 

 side (B) is of the same natural type. 



These dancing masks, like those of the Makah or Haida, are im- 

 mensely variable and generally grotesque. ISTone are found in any 

 American museum, and none, unless in Bussia, in the museums of 

 Europe. They were all destroyed by the missionaries, and even those 

 I have described from burial places owe their preservation to being in 

 out-of-the-way places. The practice of putting a mask over the face of 

 the dead seems not to have been universal, since no masks were found 

 in the Kagamil cave, but under what circumstances they were used is 

 not known, except that they have been found with adults from one end 

 of the Archipelago to the other, when the bodies were placed in rock 

 shelters. Those buried in the earth did not have masks, as far as 

 known, nor have any been obtained from underground caves, properly 

 so-called. It may be that the custom had something to do with the 

 placing of the bodies in comparatively open places, not secure against 

 the visits of malevolent spirits ; but this is merely a speculation. 



Plate XXVIII, fig. 71 (A). — Aleutian dancing mask, showing tiara 

 of feathers, ear-pendants, and labret with plate and beads attached, ob- 

 tained at Unalashka by Martin Sauer in 1792, while attached to Bill- 

 ings' expedition, and figured by him on plate xi of his account of that 

 voyage, English edition. 



Plate XXVIII, fig 72 (B and G). — Grotesque dancing mask from Una- 

 lashka, showing the cleat-shaped labret with a single pendant of beads 

 attached, from the same source as the preceding. The outline C shovs 



