United States · Woodcarving / Ceremonial Craft

Cherokee Booger Mask Carving

Tsu'nigadu'li ("many persons' faces covered over," referring to the associated Booger Dance)

Carved buckeye-wood masks (also made from gourds or hollowed hornet and wasp nests) representing exaggerated, often satirical caricatures of outsiders, worn during the nighttime winter Booger Dance to comedically and protectively confront the disruptive presence of foreigners and evil spirits before the spring planting season.

Risk level: Vulnerable · Not Applicable — the United States is not a State Party to the UNESCO 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage; no US technique can be formally ICH-inscribed regardless of significance.

Alternate Names
Booger Dance mask carving
Geographic Center
Qualla Boundary, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, western North Carolina
Community / Ethnic Group
Cherokee
Estimated Origin
A long-standing Cherokee ceremonial tradition; the dance was practiced continuously into the 20th century, was abandoned for a period, and has since been resurrected, with anthropologist Frank Speck's 1935–1936 documentation of performances at the western North Carolina reservation providing an important historical record
Cultural Function
Performed at night around a campfire in late fall or winter, the dance and its masks are traditionally believed to drive away or protect against harmful spirits ahead of the spring planting season, while also providing satirical, comedic relief by exaggerating and mocking the perceived predatory and intrusive behavior of non-Cherokee outsiders encountered historically
Primary Materials
Buckeye wood (Aesculus species), the preferred and most commonly documented mask material among Cherokee carvers
Primary Tools
Carving knives for buckeye wood shaping
Process Overview
Selecting a base material (buckeye wood, gourd, or hornet nest), carving or shaping deliberately exaggerated caricature features, and finishing with fur, dye, and other decorative elements to complete a distinct satirical character mask
Traditional Applications
Nighttime winter Booger Dance performance ahead of the spring planting season
Contemporary Applications
Continued ceremonial performance, museum acquisition, and collector reproduction
Notable Practitioners
Will West Long, noted as a significant booger dance mask maker and cultural historian whose work and knowledge contributed substantially to the tradition's documentation and continuity; Roger and Shawna Cain of Cherokee National Treasures, whose booger mask work was commissioned by National Museums NI for its World Cultures collection in 2022
Key References
Appalachian History, 'The Cherokee Booger Dance'; Wikipedia, 'Booger dance' (citing Michael J. Zogry, 'Anetso, the Cherokee Ball Game'); Ulster Museum, 'Native American Cherokee Booger Mask' collection notes
Verification Status
Desk-Researched

More from United States

  • Lakota Star Quilt MakingEmbroidery & Lace · Vulnerable

    An eight-pointed diamond-pieced star quilt pattern that replaced painted buffalo-hide ceremonial robes after the near-extermination of the buffalo herds, becoming, within roughly a generation, one of the central symbols of Lakota honor,…

  • Gullah Geechee Cast Net MakingBasketry & Woven Fiber · Endangered

    The hand-knotting of circular weighted throw nets used by Gullah Geechee fishers to catch shrimp, fish, and crab in Sea Island tidal creeks, a foundational subsistence craft historically often accompanied by work songs sung in the Gullah…

  • Black Masking Indian Suit Making — Mardi Gras Indian BeadworkEmbroidery & Lace · Vulnerable

    Black Masking Indian suit-making — commonly known as Mardi Gras Indian craft — is a distinctly New Orleans African American tradition in which members of neighborhood 'tribes' hand-sew and hand-bead elaborate three-piece suits, worked in…

  • Plains Ledger Art DrawingPainting & Decorative Arts · Vulnerable

    A transitional Plains narrative art form in which warrior-artists adapted the older tradition of painting personal exploits on buffalo hide to the pencil, ink, and colored-pencil pages of trade or captured account ledger books, flourishing…

  • Gullah Geechee Coiled Basketry (Fanner & Sweetgrass)Basketry & Woven Fiber · Critically Endangered

    A West African coiling technique carried across the transatlantic slave trade and adapted in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry, originating as bulrush fanner baskets used to winnow threshed rice on plantations and evolving, as rice…

  • Sea Island Indigo DyeingDyeing & Surface Design · Extinct — Revival Exists

    A fermentation-based natural dye process extracting deep blue pigment from Indigofera suffruticosa leaves, historically one of colonial South Carolina's most valuable export crops (grown and processed almost entirely through enslaved…

All techniques in United States →

Related mask, puppet & costume elsewhere

  • Boujloud (Bilmawn) Goat-Skin Masquerade Costume-MakingMorocco · Vulnerable

    The preparation of fresh sheep or goat hides and construction of accompanying masks worn during Boujloud, an Amazigh masquerade performance held in the days following Eid al-Adha across Souss-Massa, the High and Anti-Atlas, and the Rif…

  • Touloulou Anonymous Carnival Costume-MakingFrench Guiana (France) · Vulnerable

    The construction of the elaborate, fully identity-concealing costume worn by the Touloulou, the central masked figure of French Guiana's Carnival, danced exclusively by women at the weekly bal paré-masqué (masked ball) held every Saturday…

  • Guyanese Creole Madras Headwrap Folding and Costume-MakingFrench Guiana (France) · Vulnerable

    The tailoring and folding of Guyanese Creole traditional dress, centered on the madras-fabric headwrap known locally as la chatte, whose specific fold, knot, and point count encode a coded social message — traditionally, the number of…

  • Puno Diablada Mask and Costume-MakingPeru · Vulnerable

    The making of devil masks and full dance costumes for the diablada, the signature dance of Puno's Festividad de la Virgen de la Candelaria — a February festival syncretizing Catholic devotion with Aymara and Quechua Andean cosmology, in…

  • Bubi Funerary and Festival Mask CarvingEquatorial Guinea · Endangered

    The carving and painting of wooden masks by the Bubi people of Bioko Island, Equatorial Guinea, used as central elements of funerary rites, seasonal festivals, and community storytelling.

  • Teke Tsaye Kidumu Disc Mask CarvingRepublic of the Congo · Endangered

    The carving and polychrome painting of round, flat disc masks by the Teke Tsaye people, a subgroup of the wider Teke ethnic group, in the Zanaga region of the Republic of Congo.

All mask, puppet & costume techniques →