No one know when the first human put on the first mask. It was done in the time before time. It wasn’t done to hide, It was done to become. The mask magically transformed a fragile human into a powerful spirit-master – a Shaman.
The idea is with us still; with existing modern-day Shamans, and with sophisticates’ who believe masking reality changes reality.
Hiding behind a mask didn’t catch-on until near the end of the Middle Ages. Prior to that robbery often ended in the murder of the robbed. Why bother with a mask? Increasing success of law-and-order encouraged bandits to wear masks.
Nowadays Superhero’s wear masks though I don’t know why a superhero would need a mask. Concealing identity with a mask, whether crook or hero, doesn’t necessarily conceal much. Couldn’t everyone clearly see Clayton Moore behind his Lone Ranger Mask?
Maybe it’s the perceived glamor of being masked.
Look at me. I’m mysterious. Who knows the real person behind my mask? I imagine that was the allure of masked balls, popular since the seventeenth century, and still.
Masked Coquettes flirt shamelessly, pretending they won’t be recognized. Masked Cavaliers make proposals to masked mystery women they would never dare propose
to respectable ladies.
Marti Gras combines the masked ball with shamanistic frenzy. Voodoo conspires with whimsy. The masked Devil you’re dancing with might really be the Devil.
The mad swirl makes it easier to conflate evil with spontaneous fun. Normal rules are suspended. Marti Gras confers an authorized madness as intoxicating as the Hurricane big-gulp that can be carried, legally, outside, all night long, on any street of le vieux carre´.
The ancient celebration of Samhain was replete with ghosts and masks. On this Celtic harvest day the dead rose from their graves to circulate amongst the living. The festive living wore animal masks and skins that were thought to ward off any mischief from the ghostly risen.
The Medieval church attempted to convert this popular pagan holiday to Christianity by switching-out ghosts for saints and renaming it, All Hallows’ Eve. Despite the name-change the ghosts and demonic forces never quite went away.
Today we call it, Halloween.
Every Halloween innocent children are masked, costumed, and paraded door-to-door to threaten tricks and demand treats. It’s all done in good fun. Isn’t it? What possible harm could come from impressing impressionable young minds that masks empower impunity for threats of harm and demands for treasure ?
Perhaps I make too much of this.
Many adults enjoy the costumes and masks of Halloween. They like becoming someone, or something else, for a day. It’s a minor form of escapism, a way to briefly live in an imaginary reality. I don’t begrudge them. Maybe I’m just an old fuddy-duddy. Halloween has never appealed to me.
The purpose of all masks is deception. They’re used to hide behind and to magically transform. Deception unites both purposes. I don’t believe in magic, and I don’t think any good comes from deception.
Not all masks are physical. Any form of pretense is masking. When you say one thing and do another you’re masking your true intentions. Lying is masking. Pretending you’re something you’re not is lying.
The bacchanal atmosphere of nightclubs and rock concerts bring out the impulse to mask hum-drum life with invented personalities Young men and women dazzled by pulsing lights, thudding music, drugs, and alcohol become stars in their own Saturday Night Fever.
Waitress and factory workers shamelessly confide their really, really, true selves to each other; by the end of the evening they almost believe what they’ve been saying all night.
Then morning comes.
Masks are fun.
They can’t be worn for long.
Sobriety’s common sense sorts out the passionate sincerity
of drunkenness, A time when the soul is bared, but the mind impaired, In need of some control – morning’s role.
Joyce Guion Shipley / Photo. T. Simon