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The Meaning of Masks -- Masked Meaning?

by EditorDave

Last updated: 03/20/2012
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The mask -- a chance to pretend you are someone or something else!

Probably the first masks I remember seeing when I was a kid were those worn by trick-or-treaters at Halloween or those worn by the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Zorro, and Batman on the popular TV shows when I was growing up. We'd sometimes have cut-out masks on the sides of cereal boxes, and if my mom was in the mood to entertain some of my sister's and my crazy ideas, she'd cut out the masks and we'd be nuts around the house for a while until we got bored with them.

We later moved from Montana to New Mexico, and we got more involved with Halloween as elementary school students. So, each year, our folks would let us choose which plastic masks we'd be using for the Halloween trick-or-treating. Then, we moved to the Western Pacific island of Guam. Halloween in the tropics is sort of strange, and trick-or-treating was sort of a "foreign experience" there--at least in the more remote southern village in which we lived.

It was only later, that I began to appreciate the cultural approach to masks -- the Pacific Islanders had their own Tiki culture, mostly the Polynesians of New Zealand (the Maori), Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, and Hawaii. Most of the Tiki were carved from wood or rock as a statue of sorts, but sometimes a mask would be carved and used in ceremonies. And sometimes, the "masks" would be painted on the participants' faces.

It's one thing when the masks are part of native culture to express legends (or maybe even to scare the heck out of little native kids so they'll mind their parents), but the idea of a "mask" has now come to be a part of annual "Halloween" festivities in various parts of the world. Although masks are most often worn in Halloween festivities in the U.S., other countries have adopted this annual holiday as well... maybe a bit confused about how Halloween started, but they do it anyway.

I always enjoyed the annual university marine laboratory Halloween costume parties... they were always an occasion for us to "get outside of ourselves" and our costumes frequently reflected the types of critters or other aspects of the projects we were studying.

Contents at a Glance

Sometimes folks start with their cereal-...
Masks... The Personalities ... The Repre...
You want masks? There are plenty here...
A bit extreme and over the top, but this...
If You'd Rather Be a Do-It-Yourselfer, H...
Pacific Northwest Tlingit Mask in Ketchi...

Sometimes folks start with their cereal-box "cut-out" masks, before they go for the better ones.

Masks... The Personalities ... The Representations....

Native American masks often represent either their deities or components of their natural environment.

Early peoples and civilizations used masks in their religious ceremonies to take on the "personalities" represented by the masks. Some of the masks were of animals that the tribe wanted to hunt or animals they admired for courage and ability to find prey. They would sometimes pair off the hunted and the hunter in their ceremonial dances--such that they could act or re-enact the hunt... with the prey fleeing and the the hunter approaching and finally bagging the prey.

Tribes of the Plains Indians--such as the Sioux, the Commanche, the Apache--would have ceremonial dances, in particular the deer dance and the buffalo dance, in which the particpants would re-enact their hunt for the deer and the buffalo. Those particpants would wear a mask made to resemble a deer or buffalo (usually consisting of the skin and sometimes including the skull of the animal -- but always with the horns), and the hunter would have a painted face to represent perhaps the invisibility and undetectability of the hunter. The dance would be accompanied by drumming and perhaps flute music... and chanting and singing. Afterward, when the dancers were sufficiently exhausted, the folks at the ceremony could be assured of a good and successful hunt.

Other Native American tribes, such as the Pueblo Nations and the Navaho and Hopi and Apache Nations, would have dances and ceremonies to promote good harvests or rain or favor with the gods. These masks (and sometimes, full-costumes) would represent the sun god, the rain god, the earth god, and so on. The dances would be formalized in other ways, and rather than re-enacting a hunt or successful fishing expedition, they would be accompanied with chanting, singing, and the drums. The Apache also had a "devil dance"... an eerie dance in which the dancers wear a completely black mask that resembles a baclava or "ski mask" with a set or rack of wooden or natural horns on the crown.

The Meaning of Masks -- Masked Meaning?

The mask -- a chance to pretend you are someone or something else!

Contents at a Glance

Contents at a Glance

Masks... The Personalities ... The Representations....

You want masks? There are plenty here...

and you may get other ideas by looking at these!

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If You'd Rather Be a Do-It-Yourselfer, Here Are Great References!

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Masks Can Be Decorative! And Scary! And Fun!

Masks by the Bay.... eBay, That Is!

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