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Among the Iroquois, the False Faces are forest spirits, whose leader is sort of giant who lives at the outer limits of the world and who dominates over all the beings that dwell into the woods and can manifest themselves to the hunters who penetrate in remote and solitary places. He was called “Great Defender” or “Great Hunchback”. He was described as humanlike, but of big dimensions, with a rod in his hand made of an entire big pine tree, while his costume was the skin of a huge bear. He has also a rattle in his hand, made with a snapping-turtle shell, which he rubs against the trunk of a great elm (or pine, according to the variants) tree, located in the centre of the earth and from which he draws his powers. His face is red in the morning, because the rising sun enlighten it, and black in the afternoon. This being can control the wind and cure the diseases.
Photo of the Seneca Sherman Redeye wearing the costume and mask of the “Great Protector”, the mythical chief of the False Faces (Allegany Reservation, New York, 1933) |
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According to a legend on the origin of the masks, the Creator met a strange personage at the margins of the newly formed world. This being affirmed that he came from the Rocky Mountains, to the West, and that he had always lived on the earth, because he had created it. An argument arose between the Creator and the stranger (who is called in some versions the “hunchbacked shaman”) about their respective supernatural powers. It consisted in bringing near them a mountain which was far away. The stranger was looking around when the mountain came nearby and he knocked his face against it, taking in this way the characteristic distorted face which is shown in the False Face masks.
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Iroquois False Face mask (Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
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Iroquois False Face mask (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge, Massachusetts) |
The False Face agreed to help humans when they came to him addressing him as “Grandfather”, giving them the power to heal illnesses blowing hot ashes on the patients. Other versions of the tale attribute the origin of the False Faces to the Stone Giants, a race of dangerous and fearful cannibals
(Fenton 1987: 95-105).
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Members of the False Face Society entering a house to celebrate a healing ceremony (Allegany Reservation, New York, 1940) |
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Animals