Masso wrote a song and his brother, Hjalmer Wenstob, carved these masks for a performance they created to promote learning Nuu-chah-nulth-a vital part of reestablishing Tla-o-qui-aht culture. Beginning in the 1830s, Canada forced about 150,000 Indigenous children into residential schools and forbade them to use their mother tongues, which nearly put an end to them. Highlighting the recovery of Nuu-chah-nulth, the Tla-o-qui-aht tongue, Masso displays two masks-one with no mouth to symbolize the loss of the language, one with an open mouth to show its revival.
