At the time this work was begun the greater portion of the Osage people had practically ceased to observe the ancient custom of cutting the hair of their children in the prescribed symbolic fashion, and those who continued the practice were reluctant to speak of it on account of its sacred and mysterious character. For this reason it was not possible to make an exhaustive study of the hair cut of the various gentes of the tribe. In the days when the rite was generally and strictly observed the girl, when she had attained the age of ten, was permitted to let her hair grow long, and the boy was allowed to wear his hair in the same style as that of all the grown men; that is, all the hair of the head cut close excepting a crest beginning at the middle of the crown and terminating with a long braided tail called he-ga´-xa, horn, that hangs down the back of the head and on the shoulder. (Pl. 11.) The braided tail is called “a´-çku” by the Omaha and the Ponca Indians.
The Ponca and the Omaha, who were at one time a part of the Osage tribe, also had the same tribal custom of ceremonially cutting the hair of the children. The ritual used in the ceremony is a supplication to Wa-ḳoⁿ´-da to favor the child with a long and fruitful life.
In the course of her ethnological work among the Omahas in the years 1881-83, Miss Alice C. Fletcher undertook to gather information about the symbolic hair cut of the children of that tribe. At first she made slow progress because the Indians were unwilling to speak of matters that form a part of the tribal rites. One day, at the house of Xo´-ga, the members of the family and some visitors were speaking of Miss Fletcher’s difficulty in gathering information about the hair cut, when the old man caught his little boy and, holding him fast between his knees, proceeded to cut his hair. The little fellow fought manfully but in a short time he stood with his head closely sheared, with locks left uncut here and there. The father swung the boy to his back and as he started to go he said: “That white woman is my friend and I am going to help her.” He carried the child to Miss Fletcher and as he put him down before her he said, “That’s the hair cut of our gens. (See fig. 5, No. 2.) It is the picture of a bison; you can’t see it [the bison] but we can. You may make a sketch of it and write about it as much as you like.” The lady looked for a moment in silence at the locks and the little shorn head, then, with a hearty laugh and a handclap, she snatched up paper and pencil to make a sketch of the locks and the shorn head, to the delight of all the Indians present. Thereafter she had no trouble in getting information about the hair cut of all the gentes.