myths

over the past few days in art class we've been watching a video that has to do with ancient traditions behind the creation of certain masks, we've talked about why certain things in cultures are sacred and we talked about what type of materials some masks are made up of and why they are made up of that. some traditions that I saw while watching the video included lots of dancing, tutorial dances, tribal and spiritual dances, and just dance for the fun of dancing in some cases. in many of the tribal and spiritual dances masks were a big part of the dance, the masks symbolized the ancient gods, cultures believed that by wearing the masks while dancing they were 'connecting' to there ancestors and the ancient gods there ancestors spread tales about. traditions are important to many cultures because it keep the cultures secretly connected..this is also the reason that some traditions should be kept sacred, if only certain cultures know the traditions, the traditions almost define them as a culture. many people also believe that if the sacred traditions are shared they will slowly fade away until they become nothing but a forgotten myth. we also learned about the materials of masks and why the materials are used. some materials that were used included turtle shells and metal, some cultures also used carved coral. they choose these materials because for one the believed there was a spiritual meaning behind these objects and two, they can basically stand against the test of time, in other words they would stay around or a long time. it is important for us to know what materials/objects these ancient masks were made out of because this way we know what was available to these people at the time it was made and it helps us better understand exactly were and when it was first created