ABORIGINAL USE OF WOOD IK NEW YORK 1 85 



tioned, though now a leading feature of that great festival. John 

 Bartram saw them at Onondaga in 1743. At night: 



We were entertained by a comical fellow, disguised in as odd a 

 dress as Indian folly could invent; he had on a clumsy vizard of 

 wood colour'd black, with a nose 4 or 5 inches long, a grining 

 mouth set awry, furnish'd with long teeth, round the eyes circles 

 of bright brass, surrounded by a larger circle of white paint, from 

 his forehead hung long tresses of buffaloes hair, and from the catch 

 part of his head ropes made of the plated husks of Indian corn ; 

 I cannot recollect the whole of his dress, but that it was equally 

 uncouth ; he carried in one hand a long staff, in the other a calabash 

 with small stones in it for a rattle, and this he rubbed up and down 

 his staff. . . In my whim I saw a vizard of this kind hang 

 by the side of one of their cabins to another town. Bartram, p.43 



It is a little remarkable that these two descriptions might be used 

 for Iroquois wooden masks of today, and that probably every feature 

 mentioned belonged to the first one used here. After the Revolu- 

 tion they were often mentioned, and certainly increased in number 

 and importance. The wearers have now official duties, some of 

 which formerly belonged to the chiefs. David Cusick said : " They 

 have a certain time of worship : the false faces first commence the 

 dances; they visit the houses to drive away sickness, etc." Beau- 

 champ, p.30 



To the fact that the early missionaries found no public use of 

 masks here, and for a long time knew of none in New York made 

 of wood, we may add that Bruyas records no Mohawk word 

 meaning a mask, or referring to its use. We may therefore con- 

 clude that it came into New York late in the 17th century, and that 

 the Senecas used it first of all. Most changes came through the 

 symbolic doors of the Konosioni; civilized influences through the 

 Mohawks, and savage through the Senecas. Of this there are many 

 proofs. On this point the opinion of Mr William H. Dall may be 

 cited: 



It will be observed that, while the association of the mask with 

 a spiritual being, and an implied connection between the action of 

 that being upon a third party with the wearing, by a devotee of the 

 supposed spirit, of a mask symbolizing the latter, and, in general, 

 the invocation of spirits for medical purposes, are features common 



