6 Truths to understand the Sacred Meaning of Hair For Native Americans.

1- For most Natives, hair was only cut under certain circumstances… Many Dine, or Navajo, cut children’s hair on their first birthday and then do not cut it again… Among some tribes, hair was cut as part of tribal mourning customs… You can imagine how it must have felt for many native children to have their hair cut against their will upon entrance into U.S. government-run boarding schools. The physical cutting of hair is a manifestation of the loss of a loved one, a loss of a relationship, and a loss of a part of self.

 2- Many folks want to know what Native American hair styles looked like in the old days. There is no single answer to this question. Typical hairstyles varied from tribe to tribe, but in most tribes, individual Native American people also wore their hair differently from one another. So just as there isn’t really an “American haircut” today, there wasn’t really a “Blackfoot haircut” then.

Different American Indian people chose different hairstyles based on a style that was popular in their particular band or village, a style that identified them as members of a particular clan or society, a style worn by an older person they admired, or just a style that they thought looked good on them or suited their personality. Some of the styles that were popular among Native Americans looked pretty different than the styles that were popular with Europeans, though.

3- Women’s Hairstyles: The most common Native American women’s hairstyles were a simple flowing hairstyle (either with or without bangs) or long braids (either two braids or one single braid.)

Some women painted horizontal stripes on their hair or dyed the center part a bright color. In the southeast, many women from tribes such as the Creek and Chickasaw wore their hair on top of their heads in buns or topknots.

In the southwest, women from the Navajo and Pueblo tribes often wore their hair tied behind their heads in a kind of twist best known as a chongo (the Pueblo word for this hairstyle.) Other Southwestern Indian women preferred to keep their hair cut to shoulder length.

One distinctive tribal hairstyle for women was the elaborate squash blossom or butterfly whorls worn by Hopi maidens.

To make this hairdo, a young woman’s mother would wind her hair around a curved piece of wood to give it a round shape, then remove the wood frame.

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