Throughout much of Northern America and the adjacent Arctic regions, masking has been deeply enmeshed in the shamanic traditions of hunting and fishing societies. Dreams visions and ecstatic “flight” are central to shamanic efforts to maintain harmonious relations with the spirit worlds of both ancestors and animals that provide sustenance, in order to ensure continuity and to heal those whose energy has been weakened. Through the shaman’s activities, the world as reinvisioned is a one of porous boundaries between epistemological domains, and masks have been powerful tools, providing bridges across categorical divides. The shaman’s role as mediator between the worlds of the living and the dead, the natural and the supernatural, the animal and the human, and the present, future, and primordial past are facilitated by spirit helpers who may come to be regarded as aspects of the shaman’s own person; masks frequently embody these helpers, as well as countervailing forces.

The use of masking in relation to hunting magic is probably already evident in the rock art of Dinwoody Lakes, Wyoming, in which men are depicted wearing animal robes and horns and with the heads and wings of birds and are covered by entoptic designs suggesting ecstatic trances on the part of ritual specialists. The historical linkage of masks with trance and dream visions in the region is reinforced by a striking pair of nested stone Tshimshian masks of undetermined age that seem to depict the difference between ordinary sight and seeing with the mind’s eye. A beautiful antlered mask and images of men costumed was birds have been found in the Spiro Mound of the Mississippian cultures of 1200-1400 AD, and similar images reoccur in 18th, 19th, and early 20th century documentation of horned and mask-carrying shamans in the Arctic regions of Siberia, while Native American groups such as the Mandan danced with buffalo heads and pelts prior to the hunt.

The marshy tundra of the Arctic region from the Bering Straits separating Alaska from Siberia to the island of Greenland has been home to masks that encode and facilitate passages between metaphysical worlds by manifesting a universe of spiritual entities– benign and malign–and depicting the permeable borders between categorical domains of the Yupik and Inupiak speaking peoples. Ivory and wooden death masks from over 2,000 years ago have been found in this region, as well as in adjacent Siberia, while ancient clay death masks have been found in the Great Lakes region. More recent masks tend to depict natural forces, animals, and human beings as linked to each other through multiple spirit selves (inua), these are often depicted by multiple images in a single mask or by matching sets of masks danced or otherwise displayed in performance. Some of these masks are the paraphernalia of shamans, who may own from four to eight of them, betokening their ability to commune with other domains of existence. Others, often whimsical in nature, and sometimes embellished with feathers, string, and other antennae like appurtenances to the point of being walking mobiles, are worn by men and by women in ceremonies that simultaneously affirm invisible links among spirit selves while constituting a celebration of communal identity, providing entertainments during the long Arctic winter and offering a lively mode of prayer.

Along the Northwest Coast of North America, with its myriad inlets and islands, the winter months between periods of intense fishing and hunting have allowed time for elaborate ceremonies and entertainments in which masks play a central role. Often, these masks hearken back as well to a mythical time of creation, when the distinctions between animals and humans, and the natural and supernatural worlds, were less distinct. Masks represent the domains of the sky, the sea, the earth, and the chthonic dead. While Tshimshian and Haida masks frequently present portrait-like images of human beings, the Kwakwaka’wakw tradition and others are drawn to more abstract representations, often creating elaborate masks that open dramatically with the pull of a string to reveal one animal, human, or supernatural image inside of another, expressive of a complex and multi-layered conception of identity. In the interlinked, frequently opposed, and traditionally hierarchical societies of the Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuu-chah-nulth, Haida, Tshimshian, Tlingit, and Bella Coola peoples, the rights to wear masks, and to tell the stories associated with them at elaborate “potlatch” gatherings that mark life passages and redistribute the wealth of the community, are traditionally handed down from person to person within specific families and decent lines; thus, masks are often imbued with the added significance of family crests, identifying links to clan ancestors and totemic animal figures such as ravens and crows, bears and wolves. The rights to tell stories and to wear masks may also be gifted, stolen, or won in battle. Often, the appropriation of masks of one group by another is accompanied by a shift of perspective or values attendant on a particular image: thus, the raven may be depicted as mankind’s benefactor or enemy; the bug-eyed Sxwaixwey mask may be regarded as frightening among one group of people and comic among another. Once suppressed by the governmental authorities established by European immigrants, these traditions are now gaining new status and functions.

The Eastern woodlands of the United States and Canada are the home of other mask cultures, past and present. The masking traditions of the Iroquois and the Cherokee are based on personifications of natural forces associated with a primordial mythical time, and are accorded the power of causing and healing diseases. Denizens of the forest, the False Face masks of the Iroquois and the Booger masks of the Cherokee, though somewhat farcical in appearance and irreverent in their manner, are potent representations of “the world on the other side.” Having lost a contest with the earth’s creator, the False Face spirits are bound to be mankind’s helpers, if treated with respect; they are carved from living basswood trees and have their power sustained by ritual offerings. They appear in the late winter to hasten Spring and are summoned to the home of ailing members of the community. Their humorous and antic forerunners–husk faces masks of the Iroquois and gourd masks of the Cherokee–add to the aura of excitement and are associated with fertility.

In the desert regions of the Southwestern United States, the Hopi, Zuñi, and other Pueblo communities, as well those who have been influenced by their practices, also use masks as representatives of natural forces and of the spirit world. These numerous spirits and their representations are known as Kachinas. Kachina masks are made of leather and fit around the whole head, while other masks used take the shape of mythical animals or serve as clowns. They are deployed especially in conjunction with the need for rain in the corn growing cycle in this arid land and the human identities of the dancers are carefully preserved. Children are given small models of these masked figures as teaching devises in acculturation, and these Kachina models are also popular with collectors and tourists.

As multi-racial and multi-ethnic nations, the United States and Canada have adapted many of the masking traditions of their immigrant populations. Thus, Halloween involves the parading in masks by children, European and Caribbean Carnival traditions are elaborately played out in such sites as New Orleans, Brooklyn, and Toronto, while Chinese lions and dragons celebrate the New Year in ethnic enclaves. In the 20th Century, Medieval and Renaissance traditions involving masks, as well as traditions from Africa and Asia, have been freely adapted for use in Modernist works of theatre and as vehicles for social protest.