(23) "Joker" Mask, Monpa/Sherdukpen tribes. height 10 in. 18/19th. C. Such masks, used for comic relief between the acts of dramatic performances, may have originally been used in shamanic rituals. Beard and headdress are the most recent of several replacements. This mask represents Houshang a monk who tried unsucessfully to convert Tibet to a Chinese form of Buddhism. Here depicted as a "comic" foreigner.