More often, they include satiric comments on social caricatures and comic figures who parody the austere power of authority. Masked ceremonies played a key role in harnessing the world of mystery and threat. All over continental Europe, from the Balkans to England and into the Scandinavian countries, in Latin America, India, China and Southeast Asia, seasonal masked processions are a common feature. The collective celebration creates a neutral space where culturally constructed identities disappear. They give a concrete form to the formless and reach out to a realm beyond the immediate.
Masks have different uses in the ritual context.
Masks are also widely used in initiation rites, life cycle ceremonies and in rites of exorcism and ritual healing, as in the Suniya-yakuma ritual in Sri Lanka.