The Gentile Hair Cut of Children
Another custom, akin to the taking of personal gentile names, was originated by the ancient Noⁿ´-hoⁿ-zhiⁿ-ga, that of the adoption by each of the various gentes of the tribe of a particular style of hair cut for the young children to typify one of the life symbols of the gens. (Fig. 5.) The style adopted by the Hoⁿ´-ga gens of the Hoⁿ´-ga tribal subdivision for their children was that of cutting nearly all the hair of the head close to the skin, leaving an unbroken fringe along the entire edge. (Fig. 6.) The story of its adoption is best told in the wi´-gi-e of the gens, a paraphrase of which is here given:
THE WI´-GI-E
The Hoⁿ´-ga, a people who possess seven fireplaces, spake to one another,
Saying: O, younger brothers,
The little ones have nothing of which to make their bodies.
Then to the Hoⁿ´-ga A-hiu-ṭoⁿ (Winged Hoⁿ´-ga) they spake,
Saying: O, elder brother! and stood in mute appeal.
In quick response the Winged Hoⁿ´-ga set forth in haste
To a deep and miry marsh,
To the Little Rock who sitteth firmly upon the earth.
Close to the Little Rock he stood and spake,
Saving: O, Grandfather!
Our little ones have nothing of which to make their bodies.
The Little Rock spake in quick response:
I am a person of whom the little ones may well make their bodies.
Thereupon the Winged Hoⁿ´-ga hastened back to his brothers to whom he spake,
Saying: O, younger brothers, a Little Rock sits yonder.
Then, with heads bent thitherward,
The younger brothers set forth in haste
To the Little Rock who sitteth firmly upon the earth, in the marsh.
Around him they gathered, close to him they stood as they spake
To the Little Rock sitting with algae floating about him, like locks of hair blowing in the wind. (Fig. 6.)
O, Grandfather! they said to him,
Our little ones have nothing of which to make their bodies.
The Little Rock made reply:
I am a person who is difficult to be overcome by death.
When your little ones make of me their bodies,
They shall always be difficult to overcome by death.
Behold the locks that float about the edges of my head.
When the little ones reach old age,
Their locks shall float about the edges of their heads.
The little ones shall always live to see their locks grown scant with age.
The younger brothers spake, saying: Close to the God of Day who sitteth in the heavens,
We shall place the Little Rock.[3]
When our little ones make of the Little Rock their bodies,
Of the God of Day also
Our little ones shall make their bodies.
The four days,
The four great divisions of the days (the four stages of life),
The little ones shall always reach and enter,
They shall always live to see old age.
This style of hair cut is called ḳonⁿ´-ha-u-thi-stse (ḳoⁿ´-ha, along the edge; u-thi-stse, a line left uncut), meaning an unbroken line of hair left uncut along the entire edge.
Fig. 6.—Symbolic hair cut of the Hoⁿ´-ga gens
At a festival being held at the Indian village near the town of Pawhuska, old Saucy-calf called the writer’s attention to a little boy who was playing hide-and-seek with other youngsters and said: “Look at the way his hair is cut (fig. 6); that is the Hoⁿ´-ga A-hiu-ṭoⁿ hair cut. That style is called ḳoⁿ´-ha-u-thi-stse. Xu-tha´-pa, Eagle-head, better known as Ben Wheeler, a young man who sat near us, looked up and said: “That’s my little boy; I cut my children’s hair like that.” Saucy-calf then explained that the act of the parents in cutting the hair of the child in that prescribed fashion was an implied petition to Wa-ḳoⁿ´-da to permit the little one to live to see old age without obstruction of any kind.