Mexican mask-folk art

Mexican Masks-Folk Art

Masks are part of Mexico’s rich popular culture. They were used for centuries among different ethnic groups across Mesoamerica such as the Olmecas, Toltecas, Aztecas, and Purepechas. The earliest evidence of mask making in the Americas was an extinct llama fossil that represented the head of a coyote. The mask was found in Teqixquiac, Mexico and archeologist estimate that it was carved sometime between 12,000 to 10,000 B.C. Masks in the pre-Columbian period were considered a device that drove the personality out of the body by allowing a spirit to take possession of it. Indigenous people believed that when they wore the mask, they would take the persona of the mask. The masks were worn during ceremonial rituals for thousands of years before the Spanish conquest. The masks depicted animal spirits and Gods that the indigenous peoples worshiped.

The arrival of the Spanish drastically altered the religious and political life of the pre-Columbian peoples. Masks are an excellent symbol of the dramatic changes that these pre-Hispanic civilizations had to experience. When the missionaries saw the rituals they immediately thought of ways to incorporate the pre-Christian beliefs with church based ceremonies. The goal of the missionaries was to evangelize all the natives and convert them into Christian faith, and the masks turned out to be very helpful.

By synchronizing pre-Christian festivals with church related events missionaries began imposing Christianity. The Spanish priests as they taught Roman Catholicism using medieval mystery and Miracle Plays began to introduce new masks for these performances. The new masks consisted of the binaries such as good and bad (Spaniard, and Moor) and a very popular one, the Devil, which was used to represent Judas. When the missionaries began introducing new practices, new masks, very rapidly the merging and converging phenomenon of transculturation took place. Transculturation through the Spanish imposition generated a loss in culture among the different indigenous ethnic groups (deculturation). New knowledge was also gained (acculturation), and as both the “old” and the “new” culture merged into one a new form of culture was created (neoculturation).

The blending of pre-Hispanic deities with Christian saints was the basis for new religious traditions. The first masked dance introduced by the Spanish was the Dance of the Moors and the Christians. The dance is used to symbolize the superiority of the Christians over the Moors which were banished from Spain in 1492. Later more masked dances were performed in representation of the conquest of the natives and their eventual conversion into Christianity. The masked dances went from being representational of the cosmology of ancient civilizations to “Conquista Masked Dances.”

Contemporary masquerade in Mexico is divided into three categories: the first is liturgical drama, the second incorporates pre-Hispanic and Christian elements, and the third consists of clowns and buffoons. All three categories are highly representational of the circuit of culture. A circuit in which the production of the masks serves as a representation of the indigenous identity that suffered an intervention. An intervention by the Spanish that lead to a forced consumption in which a new culture emerged.

Masks during the Mexican Conquest mediated the conversion. The missionaries found in masks an ally to evangelize the natives. Nowadays masks are seen as folk art, as something representational of popular culture. Every state in Mexico has one to represent or highlight something unique about that region. Masks have also evolved into more mainstream popular culture. Modern Mexican wrestlers wear them as new heroic figures taking place of the old gods. No matter who wears them or what the purpose is, in Mexico masks connote culture. As Octavio Paz said, “While we are alive, we cannot escape from masks or names. We are inseparable from our fictions-our features.”^[1]

Notes

1. ^ Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude. N.Y.:Grove Press, 1961.

References

Paz, Octavio. The Labyrinth of Solitude. N.Y.:Grove Press, 1961.

Sport and Melodrama: The Case of Mexican Professional Wrestling Heather Levi Social Text No. 50, The Politics of Sport (Spring, 1997), pp. 57–68

Offen, J. (2011), The World of Lucha Libre: Secrets, Revelations, and Mexican National Identity by Heather Levi. American Anthropologist, 113: 158–159.