The Nature of the First Mask and its Role in Anthropo-Socio-Cultural-Genesis

Abstract

The article is devoted to elucidation of the nature of one of the most important phenomena of human culture. The multifunctional mask and its relationship with an extremely archaic forms of consciousness and religious rituals not only actualize but also make extremely difficult understanding of its origins and its role in the psychogenesis, sociogenesis, cultural genesis. A lot of the problems are purely methodological lapses, which initiate attempts to search for human antiquity outside of man, outside of the mother's hands, that are the cradle of humanity, the original cultural environment, as well as a natural mask, which functions are not amenable to enumeration.

Studies have shown that meaningful use of the first mask generated by the maternal instinct that caused meaningful health care of infants, which aren‘t similar to the nimble and the clever young of other primates. Historians of medicine, which, according to Pavlov, "is the same age as the first man", justifiably believe that the first healers were mothers. Healing is not cutting of stone, is not mechanical work. It requires empathy, consciousness, and developed system of concepts, of language that can reflect the delicate feelings, and functioning of extremely complex systems. There is every reason to consider as an universal initial language a system of gestures caused by painful processes in the body, which was introduced in the culture for diagnostic purposes and has played a fundamental role in the development of other semiotic systems. Conscious reproduction of the natural reactions of the body through natural masks allowed our ancestors for the first time consciously share significant inner problems. Natural face masks from your fingers imposed on the patient's body as a palliative gave rise to ideas about woe, deprivations, drugs and treatment because they were not only semiotic, but also therapeutic tool. Meaningful use of the first mask has played a fundamental role in the development of medical semiotics, medical topography, hygiene, therapy, but also brought to life the beliefs in spirits of disease, demons of death, in afterlife, lycanthropy, sorcery, witchcraft, fetishism, magic, etc.

The ideas about anthropomorphic creatures that gave rise to therotheism, totemism connected with the first mask. The fact that bestial metacarpuses (mouthes) of mother's hands not only allow you to manifest different kind of misfortunes, of brutal pain, but also to cherish the baby. Fabulous and mythic creatures initially care about us and introduce us to the language of wonderful animals and birds, the language of gestures, masks.

The natural mask has allowed to establish that human nature speaks the language of mathematics, that mathematics is natural, the first and main language of homo sapiens. Our stature allows us to measure and build geometric models of different level of complexity purely mechanical. For example, when transferring armloads of firewood or bucket of water our hands regardless of our consciousness measure, reproduce and manifest the sizes of these objects. Severe pain makes us reflexively lament: apply dimensional or coordinate grid of fingers on the sore spot to reduce the pain.Whenrelieving instinctively pain we also instinctively determine the epicentre of the pain, its boundaries and size. Natural criterion, natural mask ("mug") from the fingers, which are applied to the body, are extremely relevant when ascertaining the origins of the conscious use of not only geometry, therapy, diagnosis, but also the first mask. Therapy, diagnosis, the mask is infinitely more archaic than "stone industry", because they have natural forms. It should be noted that the Latin verb medico (‘treat’, ‘heal’) has proto-Indo-European root *med (to measure). All this testifies to the inextricable link between the emergence of conscious health care and development of mathematics. Long before the initiation of sound language and the production of instruments children are taught to complain consciously, to measure, to mean, to think, to show the size ("such wide, such narrow").In traditional societies, 6-7-year-old children become caregivers because their capacities allow them to take care of younger members of society. All this actualizes attempts to associate the origins of mathematics, the origins of consciousness with the mask, with the care about the person but not about the stone, bronze and iron. The first mask, the language of mathematics made it possible to describe not only human stature and the surrounding world, but to identify the whole range of human feelings that created the preconditions for their cultivation. Promotion of the ability to perceive the pain of others as one’s own made possible the cultivation of human and cultural society.

The study showed that "the first mask" played a fundamental role not only in the cultivation of human, society, but also in the development of various iconic (modelling) systems: pantomime, tattoo, painting, ritual, etc. The origins of audio communication by clicking sounds also associated with the first mask. The relevance of the first mask encourages to enter it into the culture at the earliest stages of psychogenesis, sociogenesis, cultural genesis. The process of introduction of the first mask in culture is carried out by means of "digital games" of mother and child. This process found a detailed reflection in the fairy tale, the myth, the rite.

There is every reason to say that the process of introduction of the first mask in culture without which we are "as without hands", is not only extremely archaic, but also is extremely universal phenomenon of human culture, underlying culture of feelings, culture of the cognitive process.