MASHONA

mashona, a bantu-negro people, inhabitants of mashonaland, southern rhodesia. the name mashona has been derived from the contemptuous term _amashuina_ applied by the matabele to the aborigines owing to the habit of the latter of taking refuge in the rocky hills with which the country abounds. before the matabele invasion about 1840 most of southern rhodesia was occupied by the makalanga, the makorikori and the banyai, all closely related. most of them became subject to the matabele, but although they suffered severely from their attacks, the mashona preserved a certain national unity. in 1890 the mashona came under british protection (see rhodesia). they are in general a peaceful, mild-mannered people, industrious and successful farmers, skilful potters, and weavers of bark cloth. the crafts, however, in which they excel are the smelting and forging of iron and wood-carving. they are also great hunters; and they are very fond of music, the most usual instrument being the "piano" with iron keys. bows and arrows, assegais and axes are the native weapons, but all who can get them now use guns. up to their conquest by the matabele the mashona worked the gold diggings which are scattered over their country; indeed as late as 1870 certain mashona were still extracting gold from quartz (_geog. jour._ april 1906). for the possible connexion of these people with the builders of the ruins at zimbabwe and elsewhere, see rhodesia: _archaeology_; and zimbabwe. mask (fr. _masque_, apparently from med. lat. _mascus, masca_, spectre, through ital. _maschera_, span. _mascara_), a covering for the face, taking various forms, used either as a protective screen or as a disguise. in the latter sense masks are mostly associated with the artificial faces worn by actors in dramatic representations, or assumed for exciting terror (e.g. in savage rites). the spelling "masque," representing the same word, is now in english used more specially for certain varieties of drama in which masks were originally worn (see drama); so also "masquerade," particularly in the sense of a masked ball or an entertainment where the personages arc disguised. both "mask" and "masquerade" have naturally passed into figurative and technical meanings, the former especially for various senses of face and head (head of a fox, grotesque faces in sculpture), or as equivalent to "cloak" or "screen" (as in fortification or other military uses, fencing, &c.). and in the case of "death-masks" the term is employed for the portrait-casts, generally of plaster or metallic foil, taken from the face of a dead person (also similarly from the living), an ancient practice of considerable interest in art. an interesting collection made by laurence hutton (see his _portraits in plaster_, 1894), is at princeton university in the united states. (for the historical mystery of the "man in the iron mask," see iron mask.) the ancient greek and roman masks worn by their actors--hollow figures of heads--had the double object of identifying the performers with the characters assumed, and of increasing the power of the voice by means of metallic mouthpieces. they were derived like the drama from the rural religious festivities, the wearing of mock faces or beards being a primitive custom, connected no doubt with many early types of folk-lore and religion. the use of the dramatic mask was evolved in the later theatre through the mimes and the italian popular comedy into pantomime; and the masquerade similarly came from italy, where the _domino_ was introduced from venice. the _domino_ (originally apparently an ecclesiastical garment) was a loose cloak with a small half-mask worn at masquerades and costume-balls by persons not otherwise dressed in character; and the word is applied also to the person wearing it. see generally altmann, _die masken der schauspieler_ (1875; new ed., 1896); and dale, _masks, labrets and certain aboriginal customs_ (1885); also drama.