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casional Publications of the Classical Association, No. 7

MASKS AND ACTING

BY

B. JEVONS, M.A., Litt.D.,'rincipal of Bishop Hatfield's Hall, Durham

Cambridge :CSSt the University Pros

1916


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MASKS AND ACTING 1Though masks were worn by all the actors on the Athenian

stage and though a presumption is thus suggested that theassociation between masks and acting may throw some lighton the origin of the drama, Aristotle in the Poetics only oncementions the masks used in Comedy ; and, if we did not knowfrom other sources of information that masks were used inTragedy, nothing in the Poetics would require us to believethat they were. Seeing a play on the stage is in Aristotle'sopinion but a poor way of appreciating it. "The power ofTragedy, we may be sure, is felt even apart from representationand actors." fH Be o^t? tyv^aywyiicov IAZV, are^vorarov &teal rj/CLcrra oliceiov rr}? TroiT/Ti/cr}?. tcrft)? jap rrjs TpaywSiasSvvafjbis KOI avev dywvos /cal vTro/cpirwv CCTTLV. Aristotle, there-fore, looking at Tragedy apart from representation and fromthe masks that the actors wore, viewed it as literature merely,classed it along with dithyrambic poetry, and supposed it tohave originated with the leaders of the dithyramb. Aristotle'sview has for long been accepted, on Aristotle's authority,though no one supposes that Satyric drama, and even Aristotledoes not suppose that Comedy, originated with the leaders ofthe dithyramb. Masks and acting, in fine, which are essentialto all three forms of the Greek drama, are left out of accountby Aristotle, and cannot be brought into account by his theoryof the origin of Tragedy. The power of Tragedy may indeedbe felt apart from representation and actors, but Tragedycould neither have come into existence nor can it continue inexistence apart from representation and actors and in Athensthe actors were masked.

1 The substance of this paper was read at a meeting of theNorthumberland and Durham Classical Association on May 29th, 1915;and is here printed with some omissions and additions.Class. Assoc. Papers, No. 7 1


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2 MASKS AND ACTINGIt would seem that when Aristotle said tragedy had its

origin in the dithyramb he was misled by the form which thedithyramb had come to assume in his day. In his late daythe dithyramb had come to incorporate some elements ofacting. But the history of the dithyramb can be fairly welltraced, and it is quite certain that in earlier times than thoseof Aristotle there was in the dithyramb no acting. It was asong, or choral song, and the chorus that sang it also dancedbut dance and song together are not acting. In the dithyrambneither the leader, o Qdpywv, nor the chorus acted any partor personified any character. Narrative, even when sung andaccompanied by dancing, is not acting. To act is to play a part,and in the dithyramb no one plays any part. The dithyrambwas essentiallynarrative ; and not until the late times of Aristotledid it take on anything of a dramatic character and then onlyto a slight extent and under the influence which the drama, whenit had reached its highest development, came to exercise. TheGreek drama in all its forms tragedy, comedy and the satyricdrama had its origin in the chorus. The dithyramb, like allforms of choral lyric, was sung by a chorus : it is essentiallychoral. Nothing therefore is easier or more obvious than tojump to the conclusion that the drama is a development of chorallyric and in particular of the chorus that sang the dithyramb.But this conclusion that the drama is a development of thedithyrambic chorus is an a priori conclusion; and it breaksdown when confronted with facts. The first fact which it hasto confront is, as already said, the fact that the dithyrambremained narrative long after the drama had developed, andonly under the influence of the developed drama came to be tosome slight extent dramatic. The next fact we have to noticeis that the early history of choral lyric can be traced; and,when traced, shows clearly that in it there never was any acting.The chorus of lyric poetry is a development of the ejaculationsof sympathy with which the words of a speaker meet fromhis hearers. In those ejaculations there is no acting. Thebystanders and hearers are playing no part, they are expressingtheir own approval or sympathy; and they repeat the heart-felt ejaculation as often as the words of the speaker elicit their


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MASKS AND ACTING 3sympathy, and they or as many of them as are touchedrepeat it together, in chorus. When thus repeated in chorus atthe end of each of the speaker's sentences, it becomes a refrainor efyvfiviov. The form in which the sympathy of the chorusof by-standers expresses itself may consist in an emphaticand heart-felt repetition of one of the speaker's words theone which specially goes home to the hearts of the hearersand comes forth again from them as an echo, and in chorus.Thus in Homer at funerals the next of kin was the e'fap%o>i/of the lamentations: he started them, he expatiated on themerits of the deceased and on the grief of the survivors, andthey all joined in from time to time, especially the women,and groaned in choral echo to some poignant expression ofgrief or of admiration. The next of kin, as Homer says,egfjp-%6 yooio, that is, was the ^dp^wv of the lamentations,and made his funeral address of praise and lamentation,and then eVt Se o-revd^ovro ^walices. And, it is scarcelynecessary to say, what thus took place amongst the ancientGreeks took place amongst all primitive peoples even, theleast cultured who had funeral rites at all. Funerals howeverare not the only occasions on which the community gathers to-gether, nor is grief the only emotion to which it gives expression.There are also wedding festivities at which the wedding-songwas sung, and the refrain of the song, in which all the companyjoined, was Hymen, Hymenaeos (Iliad, xvm, 473, and Hesiod,Shield of Hercules, 272 ff.). Besides funerals and weddingsthere are further other occasions on which the communitygathers together and gives utterance to its emotions: if thetribe had won a victory in war, some one person started singingpraises to the gods, and everybody chimed in at appropriatemoments with the cry of "Paian." As Homer says, II. i, 472,ol & TravrjfjLepioi /-toA-Tr/? Oebv iXda/covro, ica\ov aet'Soz/re?irair]ova (cf. the paean raised in II. xxn, 391, by the followersof Achilles at the death of Hector) ; and as the wedding songwas called the v^evaios, from the cry of "Hymen," so thesong of victory came to be known as the Paean. Again, inthe vineyard when the grapes were gathered, one of the har-vesters would start singing a song, and the rest would join in12


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MASKS AND ACTINGfrom time to time, /j,o\7rf) r Ivy/aa), II. xvm, 570, repeatingin chorus the refrain or


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MASKS AND ACTING 5wrong line of search for the origin of the drama, it is essentiallynegative. It tells us we must look elsewhere. But whereelse shall we look?Of late years classical scholars both of Oxford and Cam-bridge have paid increasing attention to anthropology as wellas to the classics ; it is however surprising how little attentionhas been paid to the possibility that there may be some con-nexion between the uss of masks in the performance of savagemysteries and in the performance of the Greek drama. Thefact that masks were used in the Greek drama is one of thefirst things we are taught when at school we begin the studyof Greek antiquities ; and it is one of the last things we thinkof if indeed we think of it at all when we turn to specula-tions on the origin of the Greek drama. The reason of thisforgetfulness is obvious. When we read a Greek play, we maybe absorbed by its beauty as literature or by its textual diffi-culties; but the fact that the words as they were utteredissued from the mouth of a mask, is a fact which does notand cannot force itself on our attention, and which evenAristotle dismissed from his notice. It is a fact which is for-gotten. Nay! when a Greek play is performed at Oxford orBradfield or London, it is a fact which is absolutely suppressedand deliberately excluded from the field of attention.

It is to this neglected fact and to its importance thatit is necessary to direct our attention. In the first place, ashas been already said, the origin of the Greek drama is not tobe looked for either in lyric poetry in general or in the dithy-ramb in particular; and now it is necessary to notice thatmasks, which were always worn in every stage of the develop-ment of the Greek drama, were never worn at all or at anytime in the performances of the dithyrambic chorus or of itsegdpxwv, or indeed of any chorus whatever save the chorusof drama. This clear and unmistakeable difference betweenthe rpayiKol xP^ an(^ an< other xP^ indeed between allforms of the dramatic chorus on the one hand whether tragic,comic or Satyric and all forms of the lyric chorus on theother, is of itself enough to show that the dramatic chorus andthe lyric chorus are two different streams and that their waters


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6 MASKS AND ACTINGalways flowed ID two different channels. But there is alsoanother difference, the nature of which may be first stated,and then its significance. The dramatic chorus consistedalways and only of male members. The lyric choruses werefrequently, and more especially so in more ancient times,constituted of women and girls. It is hardly necessary to say,as regards lonic-Aeolic culture, that Sappho and Alcaeuscomposed lyrics to be sung by choruses of girls; that for theSpartans Alkman did the same; that amongst the BoeotiansCorinna, like Simonides and Pindar, composed Trapdevela ;that at Delos the choruses of maids, the A7/X^a8e9, performedat a large number of festivals ; and that female choirs performedat Aegina, as we know from Herodotus, v, 83, and at Elis, aswe know from Pausanias, v, 16, 6. There is indeed no possi-bility of doubt about the fact that whereas the dramaticchorus consisted always of men or boys alone, the lyric chorusfrequently consisted of women or girls. The importance ofthis indisputable fact is that the choruses from which womenwere excluded were the choruses which wore and always hadworn masks. The consequence was that in Greece womennever were actors (on the stage). They were allowed to singin chorus; but their chorus never wore masks and neveracted.

Why the Greeks so artistic a people should have usedmasks in the performance of the greatest tragedies and mostperfect drama is a problem which has presented itself to everywriter on Greek antiquities, and has been dismissed ratherthan solved by reference to the size of Greek theatres or to thefact that they were open to the sky and that therefore a maskwas necessary to render the performer visible to the mostdistant spectator or audible by means of some sort of mega-phone to the most distant auditor. But such explanations areuseless. Masks were worn when plays were performed in themarket-place and no artificial means of magnifying the featuresor voice were necessary. What is more, masks were worn bythe chorus before the actor had been developed out of the%dpxa)v, and anyhow in the case of a chorus no artificialmagnification of the voice or features was ever requisite. In


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MASKS AND ACTING 7this connexion it is important to bear in mind that it was outof the chorus that the Greek drama was developed. That isindicated plainly enough by two facts : first the fact that themore ancient plays have no name but the name of the chorus;next, that the word rpaywSoi, tragedians, which suggests tous, as to the later Greeks, the actors, was originally the worddesigned to designate the choreutae who wore masks, and actedthe part indicated by the mask, and so were distinguishedfrom members of a lyric chorus who did not wear masks andconsequently had no part to act.Let us now turn to a closer examination of the variouskinds of Greek drama. Those kinds were three in numbertragedy, comedy and the satyric drama. The one featurecommon to them all was that the performers in all three woremasks, that is to say, were actors performing their parts. Towear a mask is to act ; and throughout the history of the Greekdrama it was tacitly assumed to be impossible to act withoutwearing a mask. But though tragedy, comedy and the satyricdrama have this feature in common, it is abundantly manifestand universally agreed that the three kinds of Greek dramahad three separate sources. We have therefore to seek forthree sources which though separate and distinct yet have thecommon characteristic that masks were worn and a part wasplayed, or characters presented, by the band or chorus ofperformers. It is to a chorus wearing masks that we haveto look for the origin of the three kinds of drama ; or ratherit is for three kinds of chorus that we have to look, each ofthem wearing masks, and singing and dancing.The tragic chorus to begin with tragedy at Athens cameto be so closely associated with the feasts of Dionysus, thatnaturally enough it has come to be regarded as self-evidentthat the tragic chorus must have originated in the worshipof Dionysus with which it was associated. And if it were onAthens alone that our gaze had to be fixed when looking forthe origin of tragedy, it would be. natural enough to look nofurther than the feasts of Dionysus, and to say to anyonewho wished to look further, ovSev 777309 kiowvov. But it sohappens that scope for the employment of the method of


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8 MASKS AND ACTINGcomparison is afforded by the well-known passage of Herodotus(v, 67) from which we learn that at Sicyon about 600 B.C.there were rpayt/col %opot which performed the story of Adrastus.The importance of this piece of information has never beenwholly overlooked, but it has never yet been fully appreciated,save by Dr Ridgeway in his Origin of Tragedy. Its importanceis two-fold. On the one hand it has been appreciated asevidence that tragedy at this early date was not only notconfined for its subject-matter to the myths of Dionysus, but hadnothing to do with them. At Sicyon tragedy found its materialin rjpajifcal Trpdgeis, in the doings and sufferings not of godsbut of heroes. The words of Herodotus about the Sicyoniansare very explicit: they celebrated the rjrd6ea of Adrastusrpaji/colai, ^opola-t, rov fj,ev kiovvaov ov n,/jia)vTs, rov Se"ASprjcTTov. The implication is quite clear that at Sicyonthe rparyitcol 'XjopoL were no part of the worship of Dionysus.The well-known passage of Herodotus is therefore importanton the one hand as evidence that the rpayitcol %opot fromwhich tragedy as we know it was evolved were not essentiallyor necessarily part of the worship of Dionysus. On the otherhand the passage has an importance as indicating that rpayifcol%opot had their origin in the worship of heroes. That isthe point which affords an important link in the argument.In the case of the Romans we know that on occasion theimagines of deceased ancestors figured in ceremonial processions ;and death-masks occur in the Aegean culture. They are ofgold, occurring in royal tombs. But we may be sure that inthe case of the lesser nobility they were of cheaper and moreperishable material. If this is so, then we may suppose that thewearers of these imagines played the part of the heroes whosedeath-masks they wore, that they constituted rpaytfcol %o/W,and enacted in gesture-dancing and possibly at first in dumbshow, the irdOea say, of Adrastus at Sicyon or of other famousheroes at other towns. What is suggested by this fact is, asDr Ridgeway argues, that the origin of tragedy has nothing todo with Dionysus ; that it goes back to the custom of wearingthe death-masks of deceased ancestors, and of enacting at first ingesture-dancing and dumb-showsome scene connectedwith them.


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MASKS AND ACTING 9Let us now turn to the Satyric drama. In Athens

Satyric dramas were originally produced upon the stage quiteindependently of tragedies. They afterwards came to benormally produced at the Dionysia as after-pieces, when thetragedies were over ; and only quite late did they come to haveany inner connexion with the trilogy which preceded them,just as it was only quite late that tragedies were composedwith a unity of subject-matter so as to form a trilogy. Justas tragedy had its origin in the rpayitcol %o/oot, so the Satyricdrama had its origin in the Zarvpcov xP 0/i - But whereasthe rpayiicol %opoi had their origin in the death-masks ofthe nobility, it is conceivable that the ârvpcov %opot hadtheir origin in masks worn on occasion by the lower classes.What is quite clear to start with is that the masks worn bythe ârvpwv xP^ were no^ those of deceased heroes: theywere masks representing the theriomorphic spirits which thepopular fancy has at all times imagined were to be met within solitary places at unexpected moments. In the realityand potency of these spirits the savage begins by unfeignedlybelieving. That unfeigned belief may continue and give riseto religious rites. If so, and as long as that is so, worship isaccorded to the spirit by the community that unfeignedlybelieves in the existence and potency of such a spirit. Inthat belief we have one of the earlier stages in the history ofreligion. Expression, visible and outward expression, is givento the reality of that belief when the men to the exclusionof the women and children seek to identify themselves withthe spirit they worship by dressing themselves up, or rather,since the savage has no clothes, by wearing a head-dress whichsubsequently develops into a mask, to represent the spirit inthe form with which their fancy invests it. At this point,however, the very means adopted to give expression to thebelief proves fatal to it. For a time indeed those who actthe part of the spirit may continue to believe in the existenceôf the spirit. But eventually as they realise more and morethat they are acting for the benefit and edification of thespectators, that is the women and children they come torealise more and more that they are only acting. Their


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iO MASKS AND ACTING\ attention is diverted from the religious to the artistic side of\ the ceremony. The consequence is that the savage comes to

feel under his mask that he is simply taking in the women andchildren. The mask has then come to be a masquerade. Hefeels a childish delight in taking in the women and children;and if he finds his account in it, if it enables him to acquirea control over them which otherwise he could not exercise, hewill for sound practical reasons continue and develop it.Whether the women are to the end taken in by it is a matterfor speculation. If, as is quite conceivable, they pretend tobe taken in by it to please, or to avoid offending, their lordsand masters the masquerade and mummery may continuefor long enough to be performed. All the children believein it. Many or most both of the women and of the men believethat there is something in it. And anyhow it has becomefirmly engrained in the tradition and custom of the tribe.On the other hand, in other cases, what ensures the continuanceof the masquerade is the sheer childish delight in maso1ueradingwhich tends to pass eventually into the artist's joy in art forart's sake, together with just enough belief or half-belief inthe existence and reality of the spirits, demons and satyrsto give point and zest to the performance.The suggestion may be made then that the ^arvpwv %opoiwere masked to represent the goat-shaped spirits who figuredin the popular belief of the Peloponnese. Originally themasking may have been felt to afford a sort of communion orquasi-identification between the worshipper and the objectof worship with whom he sought to identify himself, just aschildren when they wear a mask do their best to act up to thepart they are playing, and just like the amateur who felt thathe could only play Othello properly if he were blacked all over.

Let us now turn to the last of the three forms of Greekdrama, that is Comedy. Just as in Tragedy the chorus existedbefore actors did, and the earliest TpayaySoi consisted of thechorus alone, so in Comedy the chorus existed before actorsdid, and the earliest KW{JLWOI consisted of the chorus alone;and after actors had been added to the chorus, it was longthe custom for comedies to take their name after that of the


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MASKS AND ACTING 11chorus. In Comedy, again, as in Tragedy and the Satyricdrama, the chorus always consisted of men and was alwaysmaskeji. The presumption is that the earliest Kw/juwbol werebands of young men celebrating the harvest-home; and thattheir masks were designed to represent the various animalforms in which vegetation-spirits were believed to manifestthemselves. If Tragedy was originally the commemorationof the TrdOea of some departed hero, Comedy was essentiallythe jollification with which the labourers celebrated the harvest-home and the termination of their labour ; and their revelrydisplayed itself in the wearing of masks and in acting up tothe parts to which the masks were assigned.The proposition, that in ancient Greece there was no actingwithout masks and no masks without acting, states not merelya theory but a fact. If the statement held true only of theancient Greeks, it would be of importance in considering theorigin of the Greek drama. But it applies to all early peoples,and is therefore of much wider importance : in it lies the originof all early drama. Attention to this fact was called first byMr Webster, in his Primitive Secret Societies, from which Iventure to quote some instances. Among the Sulka, a tribe ofNew Pomerania, there are many proceedings at which maskedmen play an important part; the women and children believethe maskers are the spirits of the dead. In African secretsocieties, such as the Ukuku in the Benito region, or theEkongolo, a society among the Quollas, " the chief masqueraderis usually a personification of the spirit or manes of the dead."All of the great religious festivals celebrated by the Hopi Indiansconstitute a worship of the clan ancestors : one important groupof these festivals is that of the Katcinas, " who are masked menpersonating the ancestors." In the Chilinchili festival heldby the Aymara, a civilised tribe of Bolivia, the participants"represent the souls of the dead and go through pantomimicscenes."

In these cases it is, as it was at Sicyon, deceased ancestorswho are personated by the masked performers. In othercases it is, as it was in Athenian comedy, spirits or gods whoare represented. The Hopi Indians have, in addition to the


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12 MASKS AND ACTINGconception already mentioned of clan ancestors, "other con-ceptions of masked clan gods." In New Guinea "young menhidden by masks and long draperies of grass" personate gods.In what was Kaiser Wilhelm Land a masked figure plays theparfc of the spirit Asa. The Kwaikiutl of British Columbiabelieve in spirits or supernatural beings, and these spirits arepersonated in dance performances by performers wearingmasks. In South America the Caishana tribe celebrate maskeddances in honour of the Jurupari demon. The Akonwarahof the Iroquois tribes

wore masks, as their name, Akonwarah,i.e. False-Faces, indicates, and by wearing them impersonatedthe spirits. Amongst the Sia Indians of New Mexico the menwho wear masks and personate the Katsuma deities are believedby the uninitiated to be the actual deities. Amongst theZuni "those who personate the Kokko," the ancestral gods,"are endowed for the time being with their actual breath";the personators are young men wearing masks.To these instances of the use of masks may be added theinformation given by Dr Haddon in the fifth and sixth volumesof The Expedition to the Torres Straits. The ceremony ofEudlera Roairoai, i.e. the dead man's likeness, took place asa rule four to six months after the death. Not more than fourmen were selected to act as ghosts of the dead, and they worea head-dress of leaves. At low water, when there would bea large expanse of beach so that the crowd of spectators mightbe kept at some distance from the performers ; the Jceber le whoimpersonated the deceased, and whose personality remainedstrictly unknown, came out from the bush on to the beach andbegan to dance. "The delusion that the keber le is the ghostof the dead person is aided by the ordinary dancing costumeand the leafy head-dress and diamond-shaped bamboo objectwhich hides the face the make-up is splendid, the mimicryis excellent, and, should the keber le somewhat resemble thefigure of the man he is impersonating, the delusion is almostperfect, more especially as it is assisted by the implicit beliefof the women and children that it is really the ghost of theirdeceased relative." The keber le, as he danced, came nearerand nearer, imitating the gestures and movements of the


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MASKS AND ACTING 13deceased, until the widow or mother of the dead man recognisedher husband or son. Thereupon "the drummers suddenlycried out Ah ! Ah ! Ai ! Ai ! and the women fell to the groundand the keber le made his escape into the bush/' and "the ghostwas supposed to be now leaving for its final resting place atBoigu."The Eudlera Roairoai is faithfully described by its nativename : it consists simply in the presentation of " the deadman's likeness"; it is indeed acting but it contains nothingin the nature of a dramatic plot. In the ceremony of Tererand his mother, Aukem, however, we have "the dramatisationof a legend/' Dr Haddon tells us : "in this ceremony the chiefperformer, who personated Terer, the spirit messenger, wassupposed to take away the ghosts of the dead to Boigu." Itis or was the custom in the Torres Straits to remove the epidermisof a dead person by scraping. The legend told to explain thecustom is that once upon a time Terer's enemies had flayedhim while he was yet alive; and that his mother, Aukem,accordingly, refused to regard him as any longer living, anddrove him off to Boigu. So, ever since, to make sure that theghost of a recently deceased person becomes a spirit, and, assuch, goes to Boigu, his body is flayed as was Terer's. Inthe dramatised version of the legend Terer wears a mask"like a visor concealing his face," and comes out of the bush.He is "supposed to take possession of the spirit and to bebearing it from the body to the island of Boigu. The womennow showed intense excitement, for only the old men weresaid to know that in reality Terer was not a spirit." Theman who impersonated Aukem, the mother of Terer, wore"long tufts of grass hanging from his head over his face andreaching to his shoulders." The performance was this : Aukem"walked after her son with the unsteady, hobbling gait of anold woman, holding her two hands up to her mouth. Nowand again Terer would turn back derisively towards Aukem,posturing and skipping as if intending to let his mother catchhim, but he would dance away again going still farther west."Eventually on reaching the sea both plunged into the waterand while swimming westward divested themselves of their


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14 MASKS AND ACTING"spiritual attire/' and then "returned in ordinary mundanedress and quietly rejoined the assembly."

These instances, quoted from Mr Webster and Dr Haddon,may suffice to show that outside Europe masks and acting areemployed at funerals and in commemoration of the dead,and also form part of the worship both of vegetation-spiritsand of theriomorphic spirits. A presumption is thus raisedthat in ancient Greece also masks and acting were originallyemployed alike in commemoration of the dead and in the worshipof vegetation-spirits and other spirits ; and, if these three landsof ceremonies eventually gave rise in Greece to Tragedy,Comedy and the Satyric drama, as elsewhere similar religiousrites eventually passed into dramatic performances in whichthe actors wore masks, then it would be a welcome confirmationof the presumption, if traces of these ceremonies could be foundsurviving in modern Greece and elsewhere in Europe. Suchtraces and survivals may possibly be found in the Mummers'Plays of England and modern Greece. In those plays theperformers are masked, and they originally performed indumb-show a play the central incident of which is alwaysthe revival of one of the characters, whose death and restorationto life, though explained in various ways in various versionsof the play, are the one invariable feature of the play. Thatthe character revivified was originally some spirit of vegetationis a conjecture which seems likely enough ; and, if the conjecturebe accepted, then the Mummers' Plays spring from the samesource as did Greek Comedy ; and, like it, inherit their masksand acting from pre-historic times.

Finally, masks must, like everything else, have gone through /a process of evolution; and evolution implies continuity in Ichange and change in continuity. In the evolution of masks, [as of everything else, the earliest forms may be expected to Idiffer so much from the latest that the connexion between themat first escapes notice.The connexion between them is brought to notice by thediscovery of the intermediate forms ; and these forms are shownto be intermediate by the fact that all more or less effectivelyserve the same purpose. The mask in all stages of its evolution


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MASKS AND ACTING 15is worn for the purpose of acting ; and, for that purpose, it isessential that the features of the performer should be disguised.Hence we reach the conclusion, paradoxical at first but patenton reflection, that the earliest form of mask could not have beena, mask. Any head-dress which concealed the features of the per-former would disguise him sufficiently for the purpose of acting.Thus in South East Australia, in the Kuringal ceremony, " tenmen have bark fibre, made up into monstrous wigs, placed ontheir heads ; and their faces were further disguised by revertingthe upper and lower lips by cords, made of fibre, tied behindthe head, thereby showing the teeth and gums, and the effectwas hideous" (Howitt, Native Tribes of S.E. Australia, p. 539),and Mr Howitt speaks of them as "the masked men." So,too, in the Torres Straits ceremony of " the dead man's likeness,"the leafy head-dress, which was worn, simply concealed thefeatures of the dancer, and prevented his identity from becomingknown: the likeness of the performer to the deceased waseffected by mimicry of the deceased's gait and gesture, notby means of any mask pourtraying his features ; and thehead-dress or visor by concealing the features of the performerallowed the imagination of the spectators to picture a likenessin face. The purpose for which the mask is worn is effected bythe co-operation of the spectators with the performer. Butthere is always

a tendency in spectacular and dramatic per-formances to become more and more "realistic," and to leaveless and less to the imagination of the spectators ; and so thehead-dress, or visor, becomes a mask, pourtraying the featuresof the character impersonated. In the Torres Straits, thoughin funeral ceremonies the leafy head-dress alone is worn, intotem ceremonies the masks represent totem-animals, sharks,sword-fish, etc., while in the Boma rites sacred masks areproduced representing human faces and figuring forth thefeatures of Boma and Malu. The method, by which a mask,pourtraying the features of the deceased, was produced inthe Torres Straits, consisted in taking a wax mask from theskull. Like causes produce like effects in lands widely remotefrom one another, and in Rome imagines were prepared in thesame way and with much the same motives as the wax masks


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The following numbers have appeared previously :No. i. Ovid in the Metamorphoses, byD. A. SLATERNo. 2. The Poet in the Forcing-House,

by E. PHILLIPS BARKERNo. 3. Some Greek and Roman Ideas of a

Future Life, by CYRIL BAILEYNo. 4. Some Roman Conceptions of Empire,

by E. HAVERFIELDNo. 5. Penelope in the Odyssey, by

J. W. MACKAILNo. 6. A Study of the Pervigillum Veneris,by J. F. DOBSON


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JEVON3, FRANK B. . .Masks and acting

PI3?.J4

14. N. J.


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Masks Acting

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