68 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 195 



the Teton Dakota. Also characteristic of the Ponca Sun dancer were 

 bandoHers made of fringes of red horsehair. Another type of Sun 

 dance bandoher, according to Parrish WiHiams, was made of the hair 

 from the tail of the bison in a "square braid" technique. 



Each of the men's warrior societies also seems to have had its 

 characteristic costume and style of painting. These are described 

 later in this work. 



Individual members of the Peyote cult in the Southern band 

 usually wear dark shirts, neckties of red and blue broadcloth with 

 symbolic tiepins of silver, and red and blue broadcloth or white 

 sheeting blankets. Women members wear silk dresses and fringed 

 shawls, and sometimes symbolic beaded or silver combs, brooches, 

 and earrings. 



Many rings, brooches, and bracelets were worn by members of 

 the Iskdiyuha warrior society, according to Skinner (1915 c, p. 786). 

 These ornaments were generally popular among the Ponca in the 19th 

 century. Rings and bracelets continue to be popular with Ponca 

 women and gii'ls, and most Ponca men wear at least one finger ring. 



Hair style apparently varied with the individual as well as the 

 period, for Maximilian (1906, vol. 24, p. 97) writes that the Ponca 

 he encountered "... had their hair cut short in the nape of the 

 neck and across the forehead." The "young Ponca Indian" which 

 Bodmer painted at Fort Pierre, however, has his hair dressed in two 

 braids (Johnson, 1955, Leaf. No. 10). Perhaps the braids style was 

 an imitation of the contemporary Dakota men's hair style. Old 

 photogi-aphs in the files of the Laboratory of Anthropology, University 

 of Nebraska, and in the Morrow Collection, South Dakota Museum, 

 University of South Dakota, show Ponca men with their hair bobbed. 

 PLC and Ed Primeaux remember both braids and short hair during 

 their lifetimes. When the hair was worn in braids these were some- 

 times wrapped in otterskin (PLC, Ed Primeaux). The few old men 

 who still wear their hair in braids at the present time usually wrap 

 the braids in red or green yarn. 



The Ponca man usually wore a small lock of hair called the dsku 

 on the crown of the head. This was not intended as a "scalplock" or 

 challenge to the enemy as some have contended, but was merely kept 

 as a convenient device for attaching the roach headdress, silver chains, 

 brooches, and other hair ornaments. According to Ed Primeaux 

 (pi. 24, d), it was the custom of Ponca peyotists, in the period 

 1902-30, to wear a downy eagle plume, dyed red, attached to the 

 dsku, as well as a silver button with two pendant buckskin strings, 

 ornamented with silver and ending in two beaded tassels. This 

 same headdress was sometimes worn, in connection with the roach 

 headdress, by "straight" dancers. 



