Information on Canadian Spirit Masks

In many native cultures, the spirit mask adds to storytelling and shamanism.

Native people occupied the Pacific Northwest and the Arctic for thousands of years before the Europeans came. Even though they used much of their efforts to survive from day to day, they also produced crafts and arts to express their oral traditions and beliefs. Among their creations were spirit masks. With the pressures of western civilization supplanting the “old ways,” the crafting of masks almost disappeared. Since the 1950s, native artists have recreated this traditional art and, in many ways, improved on it.

Pacific Northwest Masks

For their crafts, inhabitants of an area adapted to the materials available. Pacific Northwest natives used wood such as spruce and red cedar. They also gathered fur, bones and dyes from various plants and berries. More rarely they used dentalia, the tooth shells from marine mollusks. Their first masks were carved from a single piece of wood, then decorated and painted.

With the influence of European art, natives next made more complicated masks, ones that enabled mouth and eyes to move. Finally, they advanced to the “transformation mask.” This was a mask layered on another mask so that the story-teller could switch from one emotion to another by removing or replacing a mask.

Arctic Masks

The Arctic--home to the artistic Inuits

The masks of the Arctic Yupik natives were cruder, not as stylized or decorated as the Pacific Northwest masks. The Yupik materials were caribou hide, feathers of Arctic birds and rarely wood that had washed to shore. The Yupik’s purpose for the masks was storytelling and imitation of real humans or of imagined spirits.

Contemporary Masks

In the last century, more natives have returned as much as possible to their “old ways” in crafts and arts. Native artists have rediscovered mask-making. They’ve kept the tradition of the past as much as possible but adapted their skills to use modern materials and techniques. They also wanted to interpret the culture of their people today as well as in the past.

Mask Artist Dempsey Bob

As it did in the past, the Pacific Northwest inspires native artists today.

Dempsey Bob is an artist and mask-maker teacher from the Canadian Pacific. Bob was first introduced to spirit masks and other native art by his grandparents and parents. He learned more formally at the Kitanmax School of Northwest Coast Art in British Columbia. He began using mostly cedar but now has added bronze. On his website he states: “Our art has to evolve otherwise it will die. I often wonder where the art would be today if our people did not stop carving for all those years. We have to make our art real for our people today.”

Mask Artist Troy Roberts

From his boyhood in British Columbia, Roberts was immersed in the stories and arts of his Weiwakum First Nation people. His teachers were two of the best in native arts--Elizabeth Kwaksistala and Willie Seaweed. As a carver of masks and other works, Troy has helped others rediscover their native heritage. On his website, Changing Tide Creations, he says of his masks: "There is nothing more satisfying than creating a mystical spirit of my culture out of something so natural as a block of wood."

More Mask-Makers

There are no statistics as to the number of Canadian native mask-makers today. During their last census in 2001, Canada reported that about 3,100 Aboriginal people (First Nations) were artists by professional or trade. Judging by the number of websites featuring spirit masks, a significant number of these artists carry on this tradition, their designs becoming more intricate and varied than in the past.

References

• Overview of Pacific Northwest Native Indian Art
• Tribal Arts: The Living Tradition of Yup'ik Masks
• Masks: The Changing Face of Native Art
• Dempsey Bob
• Changing Tide Creations

Resources

• Spirits of the West Coast Gallery