MASKS AND CEREMONIAL DANCES

Remerences +
Plate 5, Figure 1. Red-shafted Flicker. Tsimsyan.
Plate 5, Figure 2. The Owl. Haida .
Plate 5, Figure 3. Galukwiwi. The Cannibal Bird. Kwakiutl.
Plate 5, Figure 4. Growing Nose Mask. Tsimsyan.
Plate 5, Figure 5. The Killer Whale. Kwakiutl.
Plate 5, Figure 6. The Spirit Mask. Bella Coola.
Plate 6, Figure 1. D'sonoqua, The Wild Woman. Bella Bella.
Plate 6, Figure 2. Potlatch Mask of Tsetsaut. Haida.
Plate 6, Figure 3.
Plate 6, Figure 4. The Cannibal Bird. Kwakiutl.
Plate 6, Figure 5.
Plate 9, Figure 1. Heraldic Mask. The Sis-i-utl. Kwakiutl.

It is wise to point out that unless some insight has been
gained into the religious and social organization of the people
concerned the prominent use of masks in the celebration of Secret
Society Dances for example is popularly misunderstood and usually
despised or ridiculed. Briefly, the custom was one means of pre-
serving and transmitting much valued traditions in the absence of
other forms of ancestral records. Very few persons are aware that
not only was the ceremonial use of masks world-wide, a link
between the spirit, the human and the animal worlds, but that
this custom has been traced back many thousand ‘years, through
many civilizations, including those of Greece and Rome as well
as among peoples considered uncivilized. (See Ravenhill, 1938,
Pe ldie)s

In the opinion of modern experts the masks in use by the
Coast tribes of British Columbia represented their highest artis-
tic attainments. They portrayed traditional conceptions of the
invisible supernatural beings concerned with mythical episodes
in tribal, ancestral or individual experiences. Some among them
personified also the mysterious inexplicable forces of Nature,
such as the Sea Spirit or the Spirit of the Four Winds. Others
depicted the creatures, animal, bird or fish, subsequently adop-
ted as crests; for in the dim past recalled by these ceremonial
dances and other tribal functions in which masks were used, no
strict dividing line existed between the spirit, animal and human
worlds. Performers entitled to wear the symbolic costumes were
believed during those hours to be endowed with the spiritual
powers they represented, and the wearers actually became compe-
tent to control, utilize or if necessary withstand, malign in-
fluences. Indeed during the closing tests of initiation into
manhood or, later in life into one or another secret society, a

Bee ees