The Power of Symbols

Masks and Masquerade in the Americas

Edited by N. Ross Crumrine & Marjorie M. Halpin
Publisher: UBC Press
Ebook (EPUB) : 9780774843423, 260 pages, November 2011
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774857697, 260 pages, January 1983

Table of contents

Introduction

Masks, Participants, and Audience / N. Ross Crumrine

The Many Faces of Masks and Masking: Discussion / Elisabeth
Tooker

Part I: North America

1. Labrador Nalujuk: The Transformation of an Aboriginal Inuit
Ritual Complex in a Post-Contact Setting / Barnett
Richling

2. Naskapi Trance: Counterbalance to the Mask / Lucy W.
Turner

3. Seneca Masks / William C. Sturtevant

4. Cherokee Booger Mask Tradition / Raymond D. Fogelson and
Amelia R. Bell

5. Analogic Causality and the Power of Masks / Stanley
Walens

Part II: Middle America

6. The Mask and Magic of the Yaqui Paskola Clowns

7. Mask Use and Meaning in Easter Ceremonialism: The Mayo
Parisero

8. Symbolic Representation in Mexican Combat Plays / Frances
Gillmor

9. The Meaning of Masking in San Pedro Chenalho / Victoria R.
Bricker

10. Tarascan Masks of Women as Agents of Social Control / Janet
Brody Esser

Part III: South America

11. The Devil Mask: A Contemporary Variant of Andean Iconography in
Oruro / Guillermo Delgado-P.

12. Masks in the Incaic Solstice and Equinoctial Rituals / R.T.
Zuidema

13. Being an Essence: Totemic Representation among the Eastern
Bororo / J. Christopher Crocker

14. Masks and Masquerades in Venezuela / Angelina
Pollak-Eltz

Part IV: Conclusion and Synthesis

15. The Mask and the Violation of Taboo

16. Masks: A Re-examination, or "Masks? You mean they affect
the brain?" / Mark Webber, Christopher Stephens, and Charles
Laughlin, Jr.

17. The Mask of Tradition / Marjorie Halpin

References

Description

This collection of papers, presented at the 42nd International Congress
of Americanists, considers the interplay between the mask, the mask
bearer, and the audience. The studies concentrate on the idea of
masking as a transformational ritual in which the human actor is
transformed into a being of another order. The authors use examples
from various cultures and in their analyses argue for particular sets
of relationships as being crucial to the understanding of the mask.

Reviews

An important contribution which will profoundly influence our view of the complexity, significance and variety of masquerade in the Americas, and will be indispensable in formulating new and related problematics.

- Anthony Shelton