Magic Mountain

The Denver Art Museum staged a show last week that had more to do with anthropology than with esthetics. Entitled "Myths and Magic," it was a hodgepodge of everything from ancient Egyptian good-luck pieces and African fetishes to Solomon Island tabu sticks, Javanese puppets and Navajo sand paintings. Such things were not made merely to look at. Most of them had great visual impact, but their power was at least doubled by an understanding of the superstitions and purposes back of them.

A case in point was the handsomely carved mirror of a Bushongo sorcerer, equipped with what seemed to be a quite unfunctional shutter. Actually, the shutter was as important as a camera's; the sorcerer thought that by closing it he could trap the reflections and therefore the very souls of unwary lookers.

Another exhibit looked simply comic at first glance. The Cayuga Indian "Great One" mask, used in rites for the sick, represented a spirit who once challenged the Creator himself to a mountain-moving contest. The Creator responded by smacking a mountain right up against the Great One's nose, leaving him with a permanent nose tilt and a sheepish expression.

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