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Its a sign of respect and of mourning. Its a sacrifice.. it done to allow the living person to let the loved one go. Its a visual sign to ones family and tribe that your life has been severed from your loved ones life. Its a spiritual sign of the loss of power and a severing of ones self from the past. It shows that one has sacrificed to let one go and as the hair grows back the person starts anew from that point on. Its often a gift to the deceased person, here, here's my hair and my power, go forward on your journey, you are not alone, draw strength from our days together.

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Q: Why do native American cut their hair when someons dies?
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Why do native americans cut their hair when mourning?

Native Americans do not cut their hair in mourning. That was a historic feature of certain tribes that is no longer practised today.Among the Plains tribes and certain other groups, the hair was considered to be a container for part of a person's spirit - which is the reason for some tribes such as the Crows and Mandans cultivating the hair to very long lengths or decorating the scalplock with paint, beads and feathers.Taking an enemy scalp made certain that his spirit would wander aimlessly without ever reaching the afterlife and cutting off much of the hair showed that a mourner's spirit was reduced and desolated by the loss of a loved one. Naturally the hair would grow long again in time, restoring the person's spirit and signifying that they had got over their loss. Among the Crows, a widow of a warrior who had been killed by an enemy (such as Pikuni Blackfoot) could be consoled by presenting her with the scalp of a Pikuni warrior (even if it were not the particular enemy who killed her husband).Many native American groups had no such beliefs and scalpings had no such significance. Every tribe was different.