5
The False Faces
The mask in a primitive festival is revered as a veritable apparition of the mythical being that it represents—even though everyone knows that a man made the mask and that a man is wearing it.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL, THE MASKS OF GOD
THE MEDICINE MASK SOCIETY
As long as they’ve been known to history, the Iroquois have been distinctive for their healing societies. Other indigenous cultures have had their doctoring clans, but there has never been anything in the world precisely like the Iroquois medicine mask society, usually called the False Faces.
Known for their goon-faced, fright-wigged wooden masks, the False Faces need to be distinguished from the local “good witch” you can hire to help you with your problems. While many individual medicine people might be members of the False Face Society, this cult of maskers differs in fundamental ways from the medicine folk of the last chapter. Obviously, there’s the matter of the masks, which will be unforgettable to anyone who’s ever seen one. The village healer doesn’t use one of these. That shaggy mane of corn-silk or horsehair may be the most conspicuous feature of one of the classic medicine masks.
Members of the False Face Society have always been group healers, too. The national guard of the medicine people, they are mobilized as much as summoned. They come in a flock. They only do house calls. And they call you, and at special times of the year.
The old-timers held their traditional ceremonies in the spring and fall, when the collective pileup of societal ailments needed to be addressed. They made special appearances in times of special need. Their techniques were different, too, from those of the medicine people. The village medicine people, though more than simple herbalists, minister to splinters and skin rashes; their remedies can be physical and practical.
The False Faces, on the other hand, have always been fundamentally spiritual healers. They deal with the spirits of disease. And they are still at it. The healing members of the False Face Society are always male. The leader of every local group, though, is a woman. This priestess is the Keeper of the False Faces. She rules the rituals, guards the masks and paraphernalia, summons the healers, and sends them out on their missions. She is the only one who knows the identity of all the local members.
Arthur C. Parker described the accoutrements of the classic False Face Society as its members roamed the village on a healing mission. First and foremost, of course, were the masks, which every member wore. And since percussion accompanied all Iroquois rituals, the False Face healers carried rattles, often made of snapping turtle shell and hickory bark. All wore head throws—shrouds over the backs of their necks—which helped conceal their identities. The leader carried a pole on which dangled miniatures of their trademark items: tiny husk faces, mini masks, and turtle rattles. Since the customary payment for each healing was an offering of sacred tobacco, a little tobacco basket was part of their equipment.
Their ceremonies were crafted to deliver awe. Their calls could be heard a long way off, and they seemed to come out of nowhere, converging on a community at night. They stalked through the village with their gourd and shell rattles, searching for sufferers’ homes. What moments those must have been, waiting for them!
Like giant predators stalking disease by scent, these healers snuffled outside the doors of homes and longhouses, deciding which one to visit. The masks amplified the sounds they made, which must have had quite an effect. Sometimes they crashed into a house and besieged beds like marauding demons. Sometimes they crawled on the floor like ominous saurians toward sufferers and jumped up tall beside them. They finished their healings with a flourish of hair, a clack of implements, and a puff of soot. Then, taking tiny bowls of corn soup as refreshment, they made their way out to the next sufferer—until the last was served and the band of healers withdrew into the night.
They needed no escorts through the spirit-haunted wood. No demon, witch, or beast would dare touch one of them as they were: behind masks and in trance.
And so often, they cured.
There’s no reason to doubt the power of the False Faces. Traditional healing sometimes works where Western medicine has not, and the force of the mind can go a long way in the repair of the body. When all other treatment had failed, the False Faces offered the last psychic boost.
Some contemporary scholars aren’t too sure that the False Face Society is more than a few centuries old. Arthur Parker felt sure that the outfit went a long way back, at least among his Seneca people. This society feels old to us, if that counts for anything. And we have reasons for thinking that.
The tradition of these maskers was fully developed by the time the Europeans discovered it. It’s hard to believe that it had no backstory. And curious tiny bone and stone plaques that suspiciously resemble the historic medicine masks have been found in Iroquoian graves that go back a thousand years. These trinkets, possibly slipped into a grave in secret as the earth closed, have been interpreted as badges of honor for the long work of a healer whose name no one could know in life.
THE HEADMAN OF THE FACES
There are a number of origin stories for the False Faces, but they fall into two major categories. One stems from the creation myth. Michael Bastine tells this story wonderfully.
A Creation Myth Story
Shortly before humankind was put on the earth, the Good-Minded Spirit dropped in for a look at the region that would become the Northeast. It was a sublime, turbulent landscape full of fantastic, monstrous beings. The Great Spirit could see that these would be trouble when his
