A ghost mask regains its identity

Because the Center is a research unit within the Smithsonian, not a museum, it never set out to build a collection from the Festival. But over the past fifty years, Festival artists and others have generously donated hundreds of objects to the office. Until recently, however, the records documenting them have been informally kept and knowledge about individual objects rested largely within the memories of staff. A simple inventory was started in the mid-1980s, but record-keeping has lagged as the work of producing the Festival takes precedence. Since I joined the Center as a Research Associate in 2014, the material culture collection has been the focus of my work: updating the records, writing labels, and conducting research to help celebrate the Festival’s fiftieth anniversary.

In making the selection of fifty objects to shed light on the Festival’s history, the Thai mask down the hall was an obvious pick: it is large, fierce, and demanding—but no one knew anything about it. “Thailand” is written on the right side, and “Long Live the King” scrawls across the front. This made it easy to think it was from the 1994 Thailand program. But after speaking with the program curator, it was clear that it wasn’t—that program focused on court music and dance, and this type of mask was not part of those traditions.

In summer 2016, intern Michelle Ibarra took on the quest to identify the mask. She eventually determined it was a “ghost mask” used in the Phi Ta Khon celebration in northern Thailand, and found that its maker, Wirayut Natsaengsri, participated in the 2007 Mekong River program. Her efforts are documented in the article “Searching for the Man behind the Mask.” Today Phi Ta Khon is heavily promoted as a tourist attraction but its origins are ancient and have ties to Buddhism and early agricultural rituals, which the practitioners still honor.