In the blinding afternoon sunlight it seemed as though
the roads weren't going anywhere. Just one old car was slouching
along on the remote, dirt road in the Orissa region, in
northeast India. This was nine years ago. A woman was in
the car, along with a tour guide in traditional dress, and
another passenger in a police uniform. They were headed
to the nearest city.
Suddenly, a group of people sitting in a circle near the
road caught the woman's eye. Getting out of the car to approach
the circle, she found 10 women sitting in the scalding sun.
In the center there was a statue of a woman, made of clay,
and studded with pieces of corn. The women were dressed
in plain white clothing, and lacked any trace of the colorful
fashions characteristic of the area. When the ceremony began,
each woman offered colorful pieces of cloth, and some rice
and coconut, to the woman seated next to her. Rice was placed
on a large leaf and placed in front of the statue.
One of the women suddenly bowed toward the ground, and
started to rub her cheeks and breath deeply and rapidly.
Soon she appeared to be in an ecstatic state; her face,
with cheeks puffed up well beyond their natural size, became
the center of the ceremony.
Dr. Pnina Feller swears that hard rain began to fall just
a few moments after she and her companions started to observe
the ceremony. But for Feller, an expert on Bible and ancient
culture, the rain and fertility ritual was especially interesting
for its use of clothing, and for the way the main participant
used her costume and changed her appearance. A puffed-up
face, Feller explains, serves as a mask, just as makeup
on faces in Japan's traditional Kabuki theater also serve
as masks.
Feller, a lecturer at the Schechter Institute for Jewish
Studies in Jerusalem, collects masks. Periodically she goes
on long journeys to Africa, India, Nepal and Tibet, to research
beliefs and ritual in various cultures, and to compare them
to customs and ideas known from the Bible. Twenty years
ago, she lived among the Masai tribe in Africa, where she
conducted a study on polygamy, which was once common in
the Near East. A few years ago, she researched the phenomenon
from another angle, traveling to a region in Nepal known
for its polyandrous families (in which one woman is married
to several men). She has stayed in monasteries in Tibet
for months, to gain an understanding of perceptions of God
and also of death.
Feller has studied costumes and clothing for 30 years.
Many of her research trips abroad were timed so that she
could observe traditional carnivals, whether in India or
Europe, Venice or even Berne, Switzerland, for the spring
festival. Sometimes she returns with masks (occasionally,
full costumes) worn by ceremony or carnival participants.
Scary welcome
Receiving guests at her home in Jerusalem, Feller stands
at her front door, wearing a contemporary mask - a particularly
off-putting "blood-mask," featuring a skeleton
in a black hood. The mask is taken from the "Scream"
movies, and is one of the biggest sellers nowadays at costume
stores. It comes with a long plastic tube which can be squeezed,
to make blood ooze around the mask.
After this ghoulish reception (which, it turns out, was
staged for educational purposes), the enthusiastic, energetic
host shows the large storage space she has set aside in
her home to hold her masks. There are more than 200, most
of them authentic, stored away in boxes - leather masks
from the Commedia del Arte in Italy, wooden masks with human
teeth from Africa, masks with ostrich feather from carnivals
in Venice, elegant, fragile masks from Japan. Feller keeps
her favorite masks on display in her living room.
The atmosphere evoked by the large table on which the most
important masks are placed is a little eerie. Human-looking
faces, some of them very threatening looking, peer from
every angle. Only a few are friendly looking, such as those
worn by children in carnivals that recreate great myths
of Indian culture. Each of these masks represents a traditional
story. Feller describes each one, taking her visitor on
a lightning tour of different cultural worlds.
There's the mask from Africa with the genuine human teeth,
and another with a beard made out of real human hair. A
black-and-red-and-white monster mask from Mongolia sits
on the edge of the table: Half man, half bull, the mask
can be adjusted to threaten the audience with frightening-looking
teeth. Then there's a mask with a mane of hair which has
to be treated with tender loving care. It has to be sprayed
regularly or else it becomes infested with lice.
In the 1980s, Feller observed a ceremony in Zaire in which
a shaman wore a large upper-body mask in order to exorcise
an evil spirit from a local resident. Today, the eye-popping,
bizarre object is kept in an aquarium-sized box in her home.
Feller strokes the mask, pointing out the intricate art
work. Clearly it's her favorite.
By training and by profession, Feller is an anthropologist.
Her interest in masks dates from work with death masks in
Egypt. The Egyptians believed that the soul returns to the
body of a man after death. They made masks that were supposed
to represent death - and were supposed to help the soul
identify the man to which it belonged.
"I was amazed by how much work went in these masks,"
Feller relates. "And think about how much work is invested
today at, for instance, the Carnival of Venice, or before
a theater performance in Japan. I was interested in studying
why this culture of costumes and masks has been preserved
to the present day - how these mask rituals serve people,
and why they are important."
In Western culture, costume-wearing is limited to particular
times and holidays, and is generally geared to children
only. Purim exemplifies this rule in Jewish culture; in
America, Halloween is an example of a children-oriented
costume holiday. But in cultures where many elements are
preserved intact from earlier times, costumes and masks
have a larger variety of uses and purposes. When Feller
lived among the Masai tribe in Africa, she observed the
tribal head donning the skin of an animal before a hunt,
in order to gain strength from it. Evidence of the survival
of this rite from prehistoric times can be found in Stone
Age illustrations on caves in France.
In another ceremony, Feller watched a shaman dance with
the mask of a tribal patriarch, hoping to draw strength
from him. Masks are a source of power - they revive sprits
and subdue them, and they provide wearers a cathartic sense
of becoming someone or something else.
"There is always something frightening about wearing
a mask," explains Feller. "There's something inside
us which is confirmed and releaed when we wear a mask. And
as a particular period becomes more violent, as is happening
in our society, masks become more violent."
Mask wearing appears in carnivals, in different cultures.
Masks provide wearers a chance to escape from their routines
and their troubles, and to change, to be something else
for a moment: "When a small boy at a festival in Tibet,
held at the end of the monsoon season, dances with a mask
[at the carnival], he appears like the adult who is next
to him. Differences are blurred. He draws strength from
that."
The sense of release and power sweeps up spectators at
a ceremony or carnival, even though they are not actively
taking part in the event. This is particularly evident at
carnivals in Brazil, which are conducted in a blaze of color
and joy, defying hunger and want in the setting outside.
Feller believes that the Purim megillah (scroll) describes
a carnival atmosphere, even though it does not refer explicitly
to costumes or masks. The entire megillah, she explains,
is a comedy reminiscent of Italy's commedia del arte festivals;
it is a period farce. It features role reversal: the weak
Esther saves her people; the mighty ruler Ahasuerus, becomes
a weak king. Mordechai rises to glory, wears distinguished
clothing, and rides off on a horse.
Over the years, illustrations on Purim megillahs have featured
depictions of masks and costumes, despite the lack of specific
references to them in the holiday's narrative.
Purim, Feller explains, forces celebrants to confront evil,
and feel as though they overcome it. The commandment is
to rejoice, laugh, break the routine. The holiday is, in
fact, a centuries-old form of spiritual cleansing and therapy.
For this reason, she explains, Maimonidies predicted that
though many Jewish holidays might not last into the future,
Purim would always be celebrated.
