Purim is actually a form of ancient mental therapy, claims Dr. Panina Feller, who collects masks and costumes during her travels in Africa, India, Nepal and Tibet
Tamar Rotem
Photo: Lior Mizrahi/Baobao
Fleur. Why has the culture of dressing up been preserved?
In the blinding light of midday the roads seem to lead nowhere. Only one stuttering car drove the remote and hot road in the Orissa region, in northeastern India. That was nine years ago. In the car were a white woman, a guide in traditional clothing and another man in a policeman's uniform, on their way to a nearby town. A group of people in a circle caught the woman's eye. When she got out of the car and approached, she saw about ten women sitting in a circle in the blazing sun. In the center was a statue of a full woman, made of clay and dotted with corn seeds. They wore faded white fabrics, without a hint of the color that characterizes the sari worn in the region. When the ceremony began, each woman in turn gave the one sitting next to her colorful cloths and some rice and coconut. Dishes of rice were even placed on a large leaf in front of the statue. Suddenly one of them prostrated on the ground and started puffing her cheeks while exhaling and inhaling air at a fast rate. Soon she went into ecstasy, her face became the center of the event, swollen many times its natural size.
Dr. Panina Feller is ready to swear that large showers of rain fell a few minutes after she and her companion began to watch the ceremony. But Feller, an expert in the Bible and ancient cultures, this ritual of bringing down the rain and this fertility is interesting mainly because of its central use in clothes and the way the central figure changes or disguises himself. Swelling The face is a kind of mask, she explains, like in the kabuki theater in Japan the made-up face functions like a mask
Feller, a lecturer at the Schechter Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, collects masks. She sometimes goes on long journeys in Africa, India, Nepal and Tibet, to study phenomena or concepts she finds in the Bible and compare them with similar phenomena in other cultures. For example, 20 years ago she lived in Africa among the Maasai tribe to study polygamy, which was widespread In the ancient East, after years she examined the phenomenon from another area in Nepal where polyandrous families live (in which one woman married to many men) she stayed for months in monasteries in Tibet to understand the concept of divinity there as well as the concept of death.
Clothes and dressing up are one of the topics Fleur has been researching for 30 years. Many of her travels were aimed at periods in which traditional carnivals take place, such as those in India or Europe, in Venice or even in Bern in Switzerland (the spring carnival). From there she returns with masks (and sometimes also complete costumes) painted by the celebrants.
On a visit to her home in Jerusalem, Fleur stands in the doorway with a contemporary, particularly repulsive mask of a skeleton wearing a black hood. This is the central image of a horror movie called "The Scream", and it turns out to be the most popular mask in costume shops today: a blood mask. Attached to it is a long plastic tube that, if you press the circle at the end, blood flows over the face of the mask.
After this dubious welcome (intended for didactic purposes, it turns out), Fleur shows off the large storage spaces specially built in several rooms of the house for her mask boxes. More than 200, most of them authentic, are stored in these boxes: leather masks from the Commedia del Arte in Italy alongside wooden masks with human teeth from Africa, ones with ostrich feathers from the Venice carnival and others thin and elegant from Japan. She displays her most precious and most loved ones in the living room.
The view from the large table on which she spread the most important masks is quite bizarre. Strange, human-looking faces, some of them downright threatening, emerge from all sides. Only some of them can be safely said to be endearing, such as the colorful Ravenna demon masks from the Katakali region of India, which children wear in carnivals where the great myths of Indian culture are acted out. Each of the masks has a story behind it, and Waffler passes them in a lightning journey between eras and trips. This is the one that grew out of the tree, a golden figure, brought from Africa, next to her are two others from this continent, one narrow with real human teeth and the other with a beard of real hair. At the end of the table is a monstrous mask from Mongolia in black, red and white colors of a man or a bull, whose jaw can be opened and menaced with its impressive teeth. The mask has a mane of black hair that must be taken care of with care (if it is not sprayed frequently with pesticide, it is filled with lice).
In the center, inside a box that looks like a large aquarium, sits a large gourd (60 cm in size) covered with small shells, and at the bottom is a kind of faded raffia skirt. In the early XNUMXs, Fleur was present at a ceremony in Zaire where a shaman put on the mask to remove a possession from the local resident. In the front of this strange object are open eyes, which reminds us that this is actually a mask that probably also covers part of the body, Up to the chest. Fleur caresses the body of the mask and points to the spectacular work, no doubt this is her favorite mask.
Fleur is an Egyptologist by profession. Her interest in masks began with her encounter with the death masks in Egypt. The Egyptians believed that the soul returns to the human body after death. They made masks in the image of the dead so that the soul would recognize the person it belonged to. "I thought to myself, how much work they invested in this, how much gold. And how much they invest to this day, for example, in preparations for the Venice Carnival," says Feller. "I was interested in why this culture of dressing up and masks has been preserved to this day."
In the Western world, the act of dressing up is a time-limited affair and is usually only for children. This is how it is on Purim and also in the United States on Halloween. But in cultures that preserve many elements from an earlier era, such as in Africa, disguises and masks are used a lot, more diversely and more frequently, also for the purposes of strengthening and drawing strength. When Fleur lived among the Maasai tribe in Africa, she often saw how before a hunting trip, the Babu, the head of the tribe, would wear an animal skin to draw strength from the animal. The earliest evidence of this practice, from the Stone Age, can be found in the cave paintings in Aries, France.
The power that is drawn from the masks is in the way of sublimation and catharsis, from the revival of the dark passions and their subjugation, from the approval to be something else. "This is why masks always have something scary, violent," says Fleur. "It's a part of us that exists and through the mask he gets permission to break free. And the more violent the period, like ours, the more violent the masks become."
The wearing of masks appears in different cultures in carnivals. This is actually a permission to get out of the routine and troubles, to change. Be someone else for a moment. "When a skinny boy in Tibet at the Indra-Jatra festival at the end of the monsoon season dances with the mask of the evil demon Ravana, he looks like the adult next to him. The differences blur. He draws strength from that." Therefore, this is accompanied by great joy on the part of the spectators, even though they do not really take part in the act itself. This is evident in Carnival in Brazil.
Feller believes that the Book of Esther describes a carnival atmosphere, even though costumes or masks are not specifically mentioned there. The entire scroll, according to her, is a comedy similar to Commedia del Arte, a farce about the period. There is a reversal of roles: the weak Esther becomes the savior of her people, the strong Ahasuerus - a weak king. Mordecai ascends to greatness, wears royal clothes and rides out on a horse. In the scroll, by the way, there are no costumes or masks, but the illustrations of the scrolls always included drawings of masks and costumes.
On Purim, one is commanded to remember Amalek, the evil, Fleur says. This is a holiday that makes it possible to treat negative desires. There is a mitzvah to be happy, to laugh, to get out of the routine. This is actually a form of ancient mental therapy. Therefore, she explains, Rambam says that in the future many holidays will be canceled, but not Purim.
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