Bark Masks and Bodypainting of the Yamana (or Yaghan) and the Selk’nam (or Ona) of Tierra Del Fuego

by Christopher Agostino

From the first time I saw a photograph of these full-body transformations from the cultures down at Tierra Del Fuego, at the very southern tip of South America, I was amazed, struck particularly by the complete success in disguising/removing the humanity of the individuals by very basic means. The human form is so effectively altered by the shape of the headpiece/mask. The eyes (our most identifiable human feature) are removed. The simple geometric bodypaint designs achieve the fundamental tribal bodyart goal of breaking up the soft curves of the human body to make it un-human. They look like aliens. I think I first saw such photos in the Marks of Identity exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in 1999 (http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/bodyart/index.html), and made a sketch of the figures in my notebook. Since then I’ve seen a few other old photos — but only photos, and never thought to see the real thing because these are dissipated cultures.

 Yesterday I saw the real thing, two of the real masks, at the National Museum of the American Indian in New York, part of a fantastic exhibit of major pieces from their collection: Infinity of Nations.  These two masks are from the Yamana or Yaghan culture, from the 1910s, whereas all the other photos I’d seen were from the Selk’nam or Ona culture. In his Historical Atlas of World Mythology, Joseph Campbell talks about these two cultural groups being closely linked in their mythologies and rituals. He describes these as deriving from very ancient hunter-gatherer origins, without much outside influence since their location was so isolated.   http://www.nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/infinityofnations/

*Depending on the text, these two cultural groups are referred to by multiple names. The Selk’nam are also called the Ona. The Yamana are also called the Yaghan.  

The masked figures appeared in initiation rites and were used to impersonate powerful spirits. Worn by already initiated members of the men’s lodge, they would appear to the younger male initiates as manifestations of spirits they were raised to be fearful of and the effect would be truly startling. The initiates would have to fight the spirits and unmask them to learn the truth, and then they would be told the story of world creation and the origin of the masks:

In the time of the Ancestors, all things walked the earth as people. The sun, the moon, the mountains, all were people. Women ruled, and to maintain their rule they created a secret lodge. Led by Kra, the moon woman, the would wear bark masks and bodypaint themselves and would appear to the men so disguised, saying they were the powerful spirits who stayed with the women in their lodge. They would  frighten the men and order them to stay away. Kran, the sun man, discovered the deception. He and the men chased, beat and killed the women. Then they created the men’s lodge and their own spirit masks and disguises.

As a culture, the Selk’nam and the Yamana did not survive the encounter with Europeans. According to information that Campbell relates from Lucas Bridges, the son of an English missionary who lived there, there were about 8,000 Selk’nam in the 1880s, and less then 150 by 1947. They were killed both by exposure to European diseases and through an extermination campaign by ranchers who offered a bounty to hunters for killing the indigenous people.

seeing the real mask gives so much more information about their appearance and how the were constructed then visible in the photographs. This one was made with strips of bark laced together.

This is such an effective transformation of the human identity through such simple means. I can’t think of another example from world cultures that achieves so much so simply.

http://www.agostinoarts.com

Scraping Paint for the Power of the Ancients — Rock Art from Pecos River area

A caller into today’s Science Friday show on NPR asked archeologist Solveig Turpin how later inhabitants of the Pecos River region responded to the more ancient, more elaborate rock art there as they created their own. She replied that they apparently respected it/ revered it as the work of their ancient ancestors. They didn’t destroy it or paint over it, though they would sometimes add their more modern drawings to it. And then she said something that really caught my attention. There is significant scraping of pigment from some of the ancient rock paintings because apparently the newer cultures would then mix the ancient pigment from the rock paintings into substances they would use or ingest during puberty and other rituals to gain the power of the ancients. “Scraping Paint” kinda feels like what I do when I look to all this stuff and try to find my inspiration in it by re-creating it as bodyart.

She said this Lower Pecos River style of rock art dates back 4-5,000 years, with sophisticated, complex painting techniques.

It features “shamanic” figures (to use that modern term for all of these ancient human/animal transformation figures whose true meaning and purpose we can only guess at), some 12 – 15′ tall. The thematic content of much of the art being interpreted as relating to human to animal transformation (or animal to human?, or humans acquiring animal attributes?) — and the panther is the key animal power figure, just as the lion is in similarly themed “shamanic” images in ancient Eurpoean cave art. Solveig Turpin: Research Fellow, Texas Archaeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin Author, “The Indigenous Art of Coahuila” (Universidad Autonoma de Coahuila, 2011)

Click here for a video of examples and her discussion of the art:

http://www.sciencefriday.com/embed/video/10392.swf

More examples and some great fotos at  http://www.rockart.org/gallery/index.html (their site asks that they not be reproduced without permission so I am not posting any here) Rock Art Foundation

National Park site information on the area and its indigenous history: http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/amis/crs/sec1.htm

An image of a "shamanic" figure, from the National Parks Services site

http://www.agostinoarts.com

Finding Facepainting Freedom — “Sit down and we will turn you into a work of art”

by Christopher Agostino

Just back from an evening of creating art on people’s faces at the annual Summer Solstice Celebration at Socrates Sculpture Park. (what a cool place: http://www.socratessculpturepark.org/about/  )

We are working hard this year to raise the level of creative adventure at our events, and this time we just told the people on line that every face would be a complete surprise, that we would turn everyone into a work of “living art.” We’ve been at Socrates for years now and we are used to the crowd and they are used to us — there are people we’ve painted there and at other NY events many times. It was a wonderful and very gratifying evening. We painted many adults, maybe as many as kids, including adults and twenty-somethings there with no kids at all. And people were enthusiastic abut being surprised, about joining the creative adventure, and that encouraged us to make new and bold choices.

People were remarkably open about what we were painting on them, and the enthusiasm of the adults was contagious to the kids. One of our artists, Christine, remarked that there was even less questioning about what people “wanted to be” than when we do some of our other creative themes such as “just tell me if you want to be ‘nice’ or ‘spooky'”. And I think it is because we used that word: “art” (“Sit down and we’ll turn you into art”). Because if we are turning them in to art, then we must be artists, and if we are artists then we are the experts about what they should look like. Facepainting Freedom! Try it, for the truth will set you free.

Here are my fotos, hot off the presses. To fit the Summer Solstice theme, I was trying to make all my faces connect to the sun, to light, to summer, to nature — and, as I have been for months now, I am continuing to work out how to take influences from modern artists into the faces I paint at any event.

"Sun Celebration" the first face I painted at the event

"Sun Spirit Mask" - the last face I painted. Using African mask influences, and also that trick that makes UV makeups glow as the sun is setting

"New York Summer Solstice" - painted on the staff person taking tickets at the entrance to the park

"Sun Goddess" - with inspiration from Andre Derain's painting "The Dance"

"Sun Goddess" - another take on this folktale concept, I painted several Sun Goddesses throught the event

"Icarus Losing His Wings" - re-imagined from the paper cut by Matisse

"Paul Klee Sun"

"Disco Dancers" - as I started to paint this young lady they announced the start of the "silent disco dance" event