Masked Dances Signify Barbaric Survival

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 620, 23 March 1929, Page 28

Masked Dances Signify Barbaric Survival

History of False Faces

ceremonies to appease ! the gods or win their favour; and the | records of many primitive peoples, could they be recovered from the ; mists of antiquity, would be grotesque I or horrible with demon masks. | “False faces” have played a big ! part in religious ceremonies, and do j so still, where savage life has not been ! rubbed down to dull conformity with the ways of the white man. writes Donald Barr in the Melbourne “Herald." The Indians of North America have provided museums with masks in abundance. The Iroquois have a “False Face Society” whose members perform strange dances while wearing carved wooden masks with huge eyeholes, protruding lips and gargantuan noses. Capering and slouching in the firelight these dancers are sinister figures, hideous as the demon-gods that savage tribesmen worship. Masks and magic are linked in the childish but terrible ceremonies of primitive peoples. But not in all; some mask-dances are performed as “plays”; others with the object of scaring the uninitiated youngsters of the tribe. The old men in masks are cunning mummers. It’s a world-wide custom, this of wearing masks, and dates back to the Demon Time. Masked dancers are found from China to Peru. The ancient Maya people were maskwearers. Wherever used, as Wisler says, the mask is primarily associated with serious religious practices, rather than with entertainment and aesthetic effects. Yet the demon-dances of masked men often are entertaining, and a collection of masks shows that art is not lacking among savages. Among the western islands of the Torres Strait is performed the Mawa ceremony. Its purpose is to ensure a rich crop of übar fruit. One man only may perform, the cynosure of many pairs of eyes. He wears a peaked headdress of coconut leaves, and a turtle-shell mask, painted vividly

in black, red and blue, and meant to represent a human face. The dancer appears at night in the village and j greets the villagers who are not aware * of his identity. This mask and magic ceremony, wit h variations, was observed on different islands by the famous Cambridge Ex- : pedition. The custom is fairly gen- ; eral among the Western islanders and is associated mainly with the fruit season. The saw-fish dance is an elaborate ceremony—very suitable for a cinema I record. But’s it's lengthy, and the i cameraman would need a stock of ! patienee. He would also have to eui dure barbaric noises—the beating of ; drums and weird chanting, while the performers crouched and capered in ! their grinning masks, which are swayed from side to side, grotesquely. | Fish-masks may represent only fishes, as a shark: or have “companions,” in the shape of a human face or the head of a bird. There are scores of kinds, all, probably, used in magical ceremonies whose object is. good fishing for the people! Nightmare fishes, dredged from the ocean depths, are not more devilish iu appearance than some of the masks fashioned by Torres Strait islanders. Our masked balls have roots in the past, and link us, in a social entertainment, with the cannibal dancers of New Guinea. Only for fun we wear masks in the ballroom, masks dainty, or comic without being fearsome. We may not care to admit it, but the ball is merely the latest step in uhe evolution of tribal dancing. When dancers almost despair of finding novelty, they may—who knows?— borrow —just for fun—ideas from the masks and magic ceremonial of the savages! There are secret societies of masked men whose deeds are dark and the trials of candidates for admission terrible. One who dares to intrude in their sacred places risks death; discovered, he is sacrificed to some demon-god or the spirit of the society. Betrayal of any secret means death for the betrayer. None of these dreaded societies has a more amazing history than that of the Great Purrah, controlling the five little “republics” that form a “confederacy” in West Africa. I have no very recent information concerning the Purrah, but some years ago it was all powerful and dreaded, with about 6,000 men at its command. Perhaps it no longer rules the “Five Republics.” In Oceania, as in Africa, there are secret societies, whose members wear hideous masks and are in league with the simple, spirit-fearing folks believe, demons, wield the power of magic—so