~ Detail Photos ~

A truly fantastic old mask with a rich dark patina that has been embellished with definitive shamano-animist themes such as the trisul (trident) etched into the forehead, and the lime based pigments showing the sun and moon on the cheeks.

This mask has seen generations of use in village festivities that are a syncretic blend of regional animism that has been colored with strong Hindu overtones in the last several generations. The trisul on the forehead is a symbol of importance to worshipers of the great God, Shiva.  It is also associated with goddess worship and the devout often make offerings of iron trisuls at Goddess shrines, simultaneously offering blood sacrifice of chickens, goats and occasionally buffalos. The trisul is also emblematic of the great tantric Buddhist master Padmasambhava.  In short, we can then consider the trisul as a general tantric emblem of considerable importance.  It is also a truly ancient symbol - practically primordial in fact and in shamanic contexts it is associated with the "tree of life".  It is my feeling that the tantric strains of Hinduism and Buddhism in the remote past gradually incorporated this old symbol from more ancient animist/goddess cults and attributed their own symbolic interpretations to the form.  In contemporary village contexts one rarely finds anyone that will give anything other than a Hindu interpretation to the trisul symbol.

A similar discussion could ensue about the solar and lunar motifs on the cheeks.  In some Himalayan tribes that, due to geographic and political isolation, were not influenced strongly by Hindu beliefs and deities, we still find "pure" deification of the Sun and Moon.  Gradually with the influence of tantric modalities (or at least so it seems) we begin to find a more metaphysical interpretation based on polarities with male / female and manifest / unmanifest being the essence of the varied symbolism of the various binary oppositions. It is also true that not enough research has been done on the ancient indigenous Himalayan animist beliefs to determine conclusively that what we generally understand as tantric symbolism and metaphor is an adoption by the more ancient tribal religions.  I at least have not seen the evidence that would allow us to rule out the possibility that local strains of quite evolved animist metaphysics not only existed before the "tantric boom" of medieval India, but was in some respects at least the progenitor of tantric practices.

This possibility is borne out by the fact that I have seen various interpretations of ritual symbolism amongst various peoples in the modern Himalayan context.  It could be generalized that interpretation of symbols is in accord with individual metaphysical savvy if you will.  In any contemporary modern city or town of India or Nepal you will find some people for whom the sun and the moon are celestial bodies and nothing more.  You will also find those who will interpret it in terms of the unification of polar modalities such as the ida and pingala nadis - two "channels" of subtle or astral physiology in which energies can be manipulated by yogic means to induce elevated states of consciousness.  There is no real reason, in my opinion, to suppose that the situation has ever been different than now.  Where interpretation of these ubiquitous symbols such as the trisul and sun and moon motifs are concerned... it would seem that they are "speaking" to people on one or more levels depending upon individual familiarity or lack of same with the symbolic vocabulary.