Missionary masks tend to be quite natural and realistic, often appearing to be caricatures of actual people, which indeed they may have been. This was also true of masks of other outsiders such as sea captains and sailors. This realism may be due to the Pagu seeing white people as quite bizarre to begin with, and felt that they did not need to be stylized. In any case, all missionary masks, and those of their wives, show them with narrow squinty eyes, prominent, and to them ugly noses, and small thin lipped mouths. These features are the opposite of the Pagunan ideal of beauty, which favours large eyes and generous lips. The pronounced "five o'clock shadow" may have been seen as a white man's characteristic. The Pagu considered facial hair ugly; the men plucked their naturally scant beards regularly. Older gray haired men sometimes allowed wispy moustaches and goatees to develop.
According to Schwartz, missionary masks did not appear until some time after their arrival when some men began to assume their role in performances. The hospitality conscious Pagu would probably have invited the missionaries to their No Moon festivals which were chaste affairs, but which no doubt still had plenty to offend the sensitivities of the good reverends. Schwartz believes they may have begun as stand-ins, just as the Pagu had people wearing skull face masks as stand-ins for the dead who they believed would want to be present.
The performers would wear long black owl skin capes and posture and mime the missionaries. These imposters proved very popular and minor skits would be created around them. They would also enter into Pagunan rituals where they would wave their arms and scream in disapproval until driven away by demon child or brat dancers wielding their whips and using obscene gestures. This was always wildly appreciated by the crowd.
The masks and the performances probably more than anything else impeded the adoption of Christianity in Nullenesia. After rapid growth in the early decades the membership of the Protestant churches leveled off and then declined without any corresponding increase in any other denominations. By the time Schwartz arrived on his first field trip it was common to see children wearing crude missionary masks in their pretend games and carrying toy whips and canes.
