362-50<BR> Pima mask; wipenjùh mhawayhosa (TK); squash, horsehair, pigments, cotton; l. 21/39 cm., w. 8.5 cm.; ca. 1880. <BR> Comparatively little is known about Pima religion, and they have few eye-catching ceremonies. Men possessing magical powers over the weather performed a rain ritual in times of continued drought, and shamans, male and female, practiced several curing ceremonies. In ceremonies they rarely used masks, as few examples are known, and it has suggested that those made from wood were obtained from the Yaquis (cf. Russell 1908:108, fig. 26). Already in 1883 Ten Kate noted that there were a small number of Yaquis living among the Pimas, and that Yaqui women were held in regard because of their skills as midwives.<BR> In the Navitco ceremony, two masked medicinemen usually treat several patients at a time for afflictions of the eyes and joints. One represents Navitco, the evil spirit derived from the Papagos, and causing the sickness. His counterpart is Kâkspakam, and both perform healing acts, during which each patient touches the latter's mask and his diseased body parts. In addition to this curing ritual performed whenever required, every four or eight years, depending on the plenitude of the crops, a larger ceremony took place in which Navitco played a central role (Russell 1908:91,107-108,250-266,326; Beals 1934:37). This latter ceremony is unquestionably the Pima counterpart of the Papago Vikita ceremony, and referred to as Wi:gita (Donald M. Bahr, pers. com. 2007; cf. Bahr n.d.:65-71). This periodic fertility or harvest festival involving whole communities is rather elusive as only few outsiders have witnessed these rare communal affairs and published their experiences. No reliable accounts of the Pima equivalent are known (Fontana 1987).<BR> Carl Lumholtz (1912:92-98) provides a short early description based on informants' testimony on the Papago vikita, but Julian D. Hayden wrote two ethnographic accounts of Vikitas he witnessed among the Papagos in 1936 and 1945 and is the main source on this ceremony. Masked clowns and masked singers take central stage in the Vikita. The Navitcos wore elaborate turkey feather headdresses, sack-like masks of deerskin, later replaced by canvas, decorated with painted chevron designs, reaching onto the shoulders, ending in fringe. At the back of these masks a panel of colored cloth was attached, decorated with hide or tin templates of geometric figures, ending in feather fringe. Most of these mask had long bunches of human or horsehair attached to the sides, decorated with brightly colored, often red, downy feathers. Their bodies were clad in white garments, including shirts, tunics and aprons. The members of the chorus wore gourd masks, variously decorated with painted abstract motifs resembling designs on pottery, distributed in different panels created by colored horizontal and vertical bands. The latter contained pricked holes to allow vision. Hayden also provided colored drawings of the participants in the ceremony and the ritual paraphernalia they used (1987:277-279, plates 1-5,11).<BR> In 1909-1910 Carl Lumholtz (1912:93,96) collected four gourd masks among the Arizona Papagos that are of the same type as the Ten Kate specimen, although they lack the tails of hair and are rather crudely shaped and painted compared to the Leiden example. He also noted that local communities had their own characteristic pattern of decoration. Informants told him that zigzag lines symbolized clouds and lighting, while dots stood for corn. He also provides a photograph of a Vikita clown. Although the Leiden Pima mask exhibits characteristics of both types of masks worn during the Vikita ceremony, it much more closely resembles the masks worn by the singers in the chorus. These singers are called wipiñyim, while the second part of the Native term for the mask recorded by Ten Kate refers to face covering or mask (Donald M. Bahr, pers. com. 2007). More than fifty years separate the Leiden Pima mask and the Papago rituals as described by Hayden, and it is well possible that the tails of variously ornamented hair characteristic of the Navitco mask were originally also a part of the masks of the singers, but that this element was subsequently lost. Therefore it is safe to assume that the mask Ten Kate collected was part of the Pimas' Wi:gita ceremonial that was the equivalent of the Papagos' Vikita. A written note from Ten Kate regarding this mask has survived and states that it was used in a ceremony "to conjure up high spirits" rather than healing spirits, affirming this interpretation.<BR> The black band across the head is pricked through with tiny holes for vision and breathing. The gourd shell is geared for wear with a native cotton string. This Pima mask is not only the oldest known to exist in museum collections, but also aesthetically the finest example of its kind.<BR> (Hovens 2009)<BR> <BR> Gekleurd masker uit kalebasschaal vervaardigd, gebruikt om boze geesten te verdrijven.