Masks

Given that masks and the performance complex of masking, known as the masquerade, are found in practically all cultures at one time or another, there must be some fundamental reasons for the emergence of such a cultural practice. The development of shamanism seems to go hand in hand with masking and masquerading. As humans began to observe nature empirically, including their own behavior, parts of the puzzle explaining reality appeared to be missing. Explanations for disease, drought, floods, lightning strikes, and aberrant human behavior were sought in the invisible world where the actions and forces of spirits, like subatomic particles, figured prominently in the phenomena of the visible world.

The development of the abstract concept of spirit may have many sources. One plausible hypothesis suggests that, as humans began to recognize themselves and other animals in temporary reflections, they concluded that such appearing and disappearing images were the counterparts of beings existing in an invisible world and that everything in the visible world had a spiritual counterpart in the invisible world. A bison, for example, had a spirit force that remained active in the invisible world after the animal was hunted down and killed. These early peoples believed that the bison's spirit had returned to this world and been reborn in the flesh. An incipient shamanic cosmology eventually mapped the perceived universe with the salient domains being the sky, earth, and water. Food, weather, fertility, and life itself depended on these realms.

Humans associated particular animals with the realms each inhabited. An eagle was associated with the sky and sun, a jaguar with the earth and darkness, and a salmon with water and life. They also observed transformations along the path of the sun, which produced day and then night as that star passed to the invisible world. The motion of the sun also produced the seasons and, by extension, the "seasons" of humans. Birth was equated with spring, maturity with summer, old age with fall, and death with winter. These transformations were believed to be controlled by invisible forces.

How did humans connect masking and the masquerade to these unseen forces? The answer is partly found in the development of human cognition during ancient times, which found a way of accounting for real-world events that continues in some traditional societies. As hunters and gatherers, humans were an integral part of the "natural environment." They carefully observed the behavior of all animals. People as well as groups of people, such as clans, assumed the attributes of these animals (totemism). Some people moved like deer, looked stocky like bears, or were mean-spirited like swans. Some were bullish (as described by Sean StandingBear, Osage oral historian and artist). Other people, however, shared the traits of many creatures and were thought to be African costume designed by Wallace Alexander for CARIBANA Festival, Toronto, Ontario, 1986. Masks are an integral part of dress for festivals and special occasions around the world. Masquerades serve many functions, such as marking seasonal changes, celebrating rites of passage, and paying homage to ancestral ties. COURTESY OF JOHN NUNLEY capable of shape-shifting. As people allied themselves with certain animals, their totems, they had the right to wear masks and perform as those animals. By wearing the mask of a jaguar, for example, a clan could enter the invisible underworld and communicate with the jaguar's forces in order to prepare for war. Another person might perform in a whale mask and enter the invisible world in the depths of the ocean to ask the whales to give up some of their own in order for humans to have a safe and successful whale hunt. The tensions humans felt between the invisible and visible domains could be resolved for a while in the masquerade performance and its associated rituals.

By creating different constellations of masking, communities created their own social identity. When a person or group commits to a masking identity, one is transformed; "I am not myself," as the African art historian Herbert Cole (1995) has phrased it. When everyone involved in the masquerade adopts this belief we, as humans, have reinvented who we were and are. Thus, reinvention through the masquerade became a principle vehicle for creating culture and social identity.

While other animals often seem unaware of their reflected image, for example, when they drink from a lake or pond, humans have long observed their image, particularly the face in reflective surfaces, including water and shiny hard surfaces. By manipulating their image with paint, feathers, body scarification, and tattoos, people consciously reinvent who they are in order to strengthen social bonding and group identity, both crucial to survival. Interestingly, human facial expressions, controlled by the competing voluntary and involuntary parts of the brain, also affect social bonding. The involuntary part of the brain lies in the older "primitive" portion, where it competes with the voluntary portion. This tug-of-war is often visible in the way human facial expressions suddenly change. For example, when hearing that someone secretly hated has fallen on hard times, one's voluntary facial expression—the aspect that can be controlled—may communicate, "That's too bad. I'm so sorry." But, toward the end of that expression, the involuntary part of the brain takes over and an incipient smile becomes apparent.

Lying is simply a manipulation of facial expressions, voice modulation, and body language to ensure social bonding in both the long and short terms. Similarly, the use of a mask freezes the facial expression and eliminates this kind of ambivalence. Thus, a person wearing a mask while circumcising a young boy is protected by the steady gaze of the mask, which hides his true expression at an emotionally volatile time. The masks worn by executioners perform the same function.

Gender also adds to the understanding of the origins of masks and masquerades. In ancient times, men invented masks as decoys to take advantage of an animal and to become the animal in order to communicate with its spirit for cooperation in the hunt. Moreover, the entire masquerade complex includes men making masks, dancing as the masqueraders, sacrificing blood to the masks, and the symbolically violent act of drumming, which is for a man to strike with his hand or club the skin of an animal stretched over a wood cylinder. These active behaviors, so prevalent in traditional societies and in some contemporary ones, are regarded as men's work. Women, on the other hand, are expected to perform long-term nurturing tasks, patiently and less obviously, compared to men's actions.