A giant creature sometimes called the Headman of the Faces came up to him and asked what he was doing. Pleasantries commenced, and the Great Spirit kept his cards close to the vest. The giant—surely a forerunner of the Stone Giants, whose story is to come—could sense that his guest was a heavy hitter, probably from the emanations of his orenda. How heavy he didn’t guess. He suggested a test of power.
“See that mountain in the distance?” said the giant to the stranger.
“Uh . . . yeah,” said the Maker of All Things.
“Now cover your eyes and look away, and don’t turn round till I tell you.” Heaven’s Holder played peek-a-boo, doubtless with a wry immortal smile.
There was a rustling of the winds and a shaking of the earth. It lasted quite a while. When the world had again fallen still, the giant being called triumphantly for the Great Spirit to turn and look. The distant mountain had moved a few notches. It was as far to the right of the sun at the bottom of the stormy sky as it had just been to the left. The giant looked very happy with himself.
“Wow, that’s pretty good,” said the Good-Minded One. “I can see you’ve really been working on your magic. Now it’s my turn. You just cover up and close your eyes the way I did.”
At the instant the giant’s mighty paws closed over, the Creator welcomed him to turn and look. The giant had sensed no quaking earth or cyclones and thought it had to be a trick. He turned too fast. The mountain was right on top of him, with a rocky jutting cliff on the level of his forehead. As he jerked around, it smacked his rugged puss and sprawled his features all over it. Suddenly the giant realized who he was talking to.
The Good Spirit shared the information that he had been thinking about clearing the world of its rambunctious first inhabitants. He asked the giant what he made of that.
“We can’t change our natures,” the giant said. “But we have a lot of good to give. We could become great healers. We could learn the uses of plants and the ceremonies of restoring health. We’ll get those ready for the day the people get here and figure out how to teach them.” The Good-Minded One decided that the world could stand to keep a bit of its diversity. The giants did indeed become healers, and the familiar crook-nosed masks have been made ever since in tribute to the first one, the Headman of the Faces, and his craggy collision.
Another version of the False Face story takes place near enough to our own time to involve a human encounter, probably within the last thousand years.
The Stone Giants—inveterate enemies of humankind—had been removed from the world, all but one. This last of them was a mighty being who had grown mightier through his years of isolation. He had made his home in a cave in the Allegheny Mountains.
A young Seneca hunter lost in a storm stumbled into this lair. After all the centuries on his own, the giant was ready for company. He let the young hunter stay with him and taught him a variety of arts, including healing through dreams and visions. As he left the cave at the end of it all, an apparition guided the human hunter to a basswood tree on which the original False Face mask was waiting for him.
It’s been said that these two myths were meant to stand for the two major classes of masks. The oldest story involving the Good-Minded Spirit could be the origin-tale of the Great Doctor masks, generally the most revered of the bunch. The Stone-Giant tale might be the source of the Common Faces.
DOCTORS AND DOORKEEPERS
Writing around the turn of the twentieth century, Parker described four classes of masks:
Doorkeeper or Doctor masks
Dancing masks
Beggar (and possibly thief) masks, not part of the true society
Secret masks, never used in public ceremonies
The classic recent study is the one of William Fenton, The False Faces of the Iroquois (1987). Fenton sticks to the idea that there were two main orders of masks, of which the Doctor/Doorkeepers are generally considered a higher caste than the Common Faces. This system might not be so rigid for the people who use them. This ranking of the two classes of masks could have something to do with their origin-tales.
The Great Doctor masks were drawn from the creation song and the game between the Creator and the crook-faced giant. These grand, time-tested healing masks, sometimes also called Doorkeeper masks, were long haired and colored red or black. Their mouths were either twisted or spoonlike for blowing soot. The oldest masks had corn-silk hair, though horse’s manes were used after European contact.
Iroquois masks of this holy class are more than portraits of random demons. Each one gives a definite message through its shape, color, and features. Some are mythological beings, gods of disease or wind. Old masks, veterans of many rites, passed along through centuries, have plenty of authority. Intuitives of any nationality feel a sense of awe when they behold any of these major masks, true works of sacred art.
Even among the Doctor masks, there’s thought to be a pecking order. In some quarters, the red masks are considered more powerful than the black. There are even divided masks, painted half red and half black, possibly for the curing of people divided in spirit. Every year we seem to need a few more of those.
BEGGARS AND THIEVES
A ramshackle, slightly less imposing lot sometimes considered a lesser category, the common faces were rooted in stories set much more recently in time. One we discussed before involves the Stone Giants well after the Great Spirit had cleared the world of most of its demons. Others lack even mentions of the
