I recently bough some beautiful handmade balinese masks 9for a wall decoration). They are made by artists, and are rumored to have a bit of their maker’s soul in them. Years ago, I read that a western dancer travelled to bali, to study dancing, and she was tod by the master to never put on one of these masks 9depicting the devil or other evil demon). She disobeyed this injunction, and became very ill-the local shaman had to do a very involved ceremony to remove this demon that had takem posession of her. Has anybody noticed anything odd after wearing one of these gruesome masks?
I heard that merely buying one of these masks can cause the purchaser to post to the wrong forum.
Masks are inanimate objects and therefore cannot be good or evil. I highly doubt that the story that you “read” is true. Do you have a cite? If the story is true, the illness of the mask wearer was a coincidince and had nothing to do with the wearing of mask. I hope that she didn’t pay the shaman for the “ceremony.”
Haj
Balinese religious practices are decendant from Buddhism. Certainly, in Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, they use similar masks. WARNING: very simplistic explanation to follow. These are inanimate objects. When used for a Tantric ritual, practicioners spend a really long time (can be months) in preparation, and the masks can be used as part of the ritual. I’m being really simplistic, but after all the preparation, the masks may represent a diety and channel some of that power, but it won’t happen by casually putting on a mask.
The masks in Tibetan Buddhism may represent the wrathful incarnation of a diety. This is not to say it is evil. More like your perfectly trained guard dog becomes a 80 pounds of snarling whoop-ass when called on to defend his owner.
Now, I believe Balinese masks are very similar to Tibetan ones.
There’s the difference between your modern sceptico-scientific worldview and the traditional Malay worldview. For the Malayo-Polynesian peoples, even “inanimate” objects have some kind of indwelling life force, known as semangat in Malay and mana in Polynesian languages. Certain handicrafts like a kris or a mask are reputed to have their own personalities. Not to take sides on the question either way, but just to note how different cultures can view things.
Sceptico-scientific! I love it.
What you say is true enough but I’ve spent many months of my life in Malaysia and very few of them believe in the old ways any more. I’d put the percentage at much less than the percentage of Americans who think that the seven days of Creation is the literal truth.
Haj
This isn’t really a General Question. It might be an MPSIMS, but I think I’ll send it to IMHO.
bibliophage
moderator GQ
(who is somehow reminded of a Brady Bunch episode)
Masks of th Indonesian witch Rangda and Indian images of Kirtimukkha and Smashan Kali have a good deal in common with the Greek Gorgon, to which they are obvious parallels. These masks do seem to exude a sort of power, largely because of their oversized eyes. There is real basis for this apparent power, I maintain, and I discuss it at length in my book Medusa. This isn’t just a cheesy plug – it’s a central an important issue about the power f images, and I bring this up because it merits a longer discussion tha this Board allows.
On the other hand, I’ve known quite a few Malaysians and a larger number of them believed in psychic influences and witchcraft than my American friends. Heck, one of them even had the habit of burying his fingernail clippings in the front yard. Maybe they ship all the superstitious ones to America? 