Field Journal
Searching for faces behind the Río Mayo Masks
April 13-16, 2006
by Dr. Emiliano Gallaga Murrieta
“Big Jim” Griffith donated his collection of masks from northwest Mexcio in 2005 to the Arizona State Museum. This initiated a cataloguing project that I began in January 2006 under the direction of Diane Dittemore, curator of ethnological collections. While working with the masks, the idea emerged to make a web exhibit of the collection. To illustrate the full context of the pascola mask—more than an inanimate object on a museum shelf—and to record the masks in action, a visit to the Mayo region was planned. Thus, on Thursday, April 13, 2006, a small group traveled to the Mayo communities of southern Sonora for a few days. Our objective was twofold: to visit and record the use of pascola masks in the Easter ceremonies, and to speak with actual mascareros, or mask makers.
Before we set foot in the Mayo region, I printed a preliminary catalogue that included images of most pascola and pharisee (in Mayo, capakóbam; in Yoeme, chapayékam or capayékam) masks in the Griffith collection, data on the Mayo communities that Griffith visited in the early 1960s, and names of mascareros and of different types of woods used to make the masks. Several copies were made and brought along to distribute to local museums, institutions, or Mayo mascareros.
Diane Dittemore, Emiliano Gallaga, Davison Koenig, Gillian Newell, Kate Sarther, Bryan Stevens, and Jannelle Weakly joined this memorable field trip. A day-by-day description of this trip follows here.
