M \ i l.i;i \i. ( i LTUBE. 49 



The manner of dressing the hair is often a conspicuous 



conventional feature. Many of the Plains tribes wore 

 it uncropped. Among the northern tribes the men 

 frequently gathered the hair in two braids but in the 

 Plateau area and among some of the southern tribes, 

 both sexes usually wore it loose on the shoulders and 

 back. The Crow men sometimes cropped the fore-lock 

 and trained it to stand erect; the Blackfoot, Assini- 

 boine, Yankton-Dakota, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, 

 and Kiowa trained a fore-lock to hang down over the 

 nose. Early writers report a general practice of arti- 

 ficially lengthening men's hair by gumming on extra 

 strands until it sometimes dragged on the ground. 



The hair of women throughout the Plains was usually 

 worn in the two-braid fashion with the median part 

 from the forehead to the neck. Old women frequently 

 allowed the hair to hang down at the sides or confined 

 it by a simple head band. 



Again, we find exceptions in that the Oto, Osage, 

 Pawnee, and Omaha closely cropped the sides of the 

 head, leaving a ridge or tuft across the crown and down 

 behind. It is almost certain that the Ponca once 

 followed the same style and there is a tradition among 

 the Oglala division of the Teton-Dakota that they also 

 shaved the sides of the head. (See also History of the 

 Expedition of Lewis and Clark, Reprinted, New York, 

 1902, Vol. 1, p. 135.) We may say then that the love 

 of long heavy tresses was a typical trait of the Plains. 



By the public every Indian is expected to have his 

 hair thickly decked with feathers. The striking 



