LA PLE9CHE] 



CHILD-NAMING RITE 



89 



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 Ho^'-ga A-hiu-to° 

 hair cut. That style is called ko^'-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 pre- 

 scribed fashion was an implied petition to 

 Wa-ko°'-da to permit the little one to live to 

 see old age without obstruction of any kind. 



Hair Cut of the Tsi'-zhu Wa-shta-ge Gens 



Fig. G. — Symbolic hair cu! of 

 the Ho^'-ga gens 



The people of the Tsi'-zhu Wa-shta-ge 

 (Peacemaker) gens, who occupied the most 

 important and honored place in the great tribal division represent- 

 ing the sky and all that it contains, adopted the ko°'-ha-u-thi-stse 

 style of hair cut for their little ones, which varied slightly from the 



styles used by the Ho"'- 

 ga. In the Tsi'-zhu Wa- 

 shta-ge symbolic hair cut 

 the line of hair left uncut 

 along the edge is divided 

 into little locks to typify 

 the petals of the cone- 

 flower, which is the sacred 

 flower of the gens (fig. 7). 

 Sho"' -ge-mo°-i°, in 

 speaking of the symbolic 

 hair cut of the children of 

 his gens, the Tsi'-zhu 

 Wa-shta-ge, told the fol- 

 lowing mythical story of 

 its origin: 



In the beginning the 



Tsi'-zhu people came 



down, in the form of 



eagles, from the upper to the lower world. As they came in sight of 



the earth they beheld a large red oak tree. They soared down to it 



and alighted upon its topmost branches. The shock of their weight 



19078°— 28 7 



-S3rraboIic hair cut of the Tsi'-zhu Wa-shta-ge gens 



