Dig It - 10/30/23
Well Fellow Seekers, Meet “Orange Man” Hombre Naranjo, I think I got that right. Anyway, he is a Rustica, a wild man of the woods, sometimes he is a hunter or tracker - maybe that should be Rustico, since he is male. Sorry, my Spanish is a little rusty.
This is a wonderful old Mexican mask, well hollowed out and carved with very thin walls. It has lots of evidence of use. The mask certainly dates to the first half of the 20th Century. His mustache, beard and top knot are made from ixtle fiber, a type of fibrous agave plant used by Indigenous people of Mexico.
Funny story, when I was living in Oaxaca, close to 50 years ago, there were Ixtle fiber weavers who sold the traditional sausage shaped bags that went over your shoulder in the market. They had a net weave that would expand and contract depending on how much stuff you put in them and the bag kind of hung on your back. Well, when a tourist would buy one of these bags from the vendors, they would empty the contents of their bag/purse in the one of these ixtle fiber bolsos. The thieves, or ladrones, would line up across from the ixtle vendors and follow the tourist out of the market and slit the tourist’s bag without them ever knowing it. The Mask is for sale.
-Adios, Lonesome