Lakota Hair Cutting in Mourning: Why Families Cut Their Hair When Someone Dies

Why Hair Is Cut After a Death

In Lakota culture, hair is not simply a physical feature. It is understood as an extension of the spirit — a living record of memory, identity, and ancestral connection. Long hair represents accumulated personal power, vitality, and continuity with one's lineage.

When a close relative dies, cutting the hair is a deliberate act of sacrifice. The mourner severs something of real spiritual value — their personal power and physical beauty — as an outward expression of the depth of their loss. It is not symbolic in the way Western mourning rituals are often symbolic. Traditional teaching treats the hair cutting as a genuine spiritual transaction: you are giving up something real to honor the person who walked on.

The cut also marks a visible boundary between the life before the death and the life after it. Everyone who sees you knows immediately that you are in active mourning. This visibility serves a protective function — the community recognizes your state and adjusts its behavior accordingly, offering support and respecting your grief without requiring you to explain or perform it.

Who Cuts Their Hair and When

Hair cutting is practiced by the immediate family of the deceased — typically spouses, children, parents, and siblings. It happens during the initial period after death, usually within the first day or two, before or during the wake.

The extent of the cut varies by family and band:

• Some families cut the entire braid, placing the severed hair in the casket so it travels with the deceased on the Spirit Path
• Others make a shorter symbolic cut, trimming several inches as a sacrifice while preserving some length
• In some practices, both men and women cut their hair; in others, the practice is more strongly associated with women mourners

There is no single universal rule — Oglala families may follow different norms than Sicangu or Hunkpapa families, and individual family traditions carry significant weight. Before proceeding, check with the eldest sibling, parent, or uncle directing the funeral about your family's specific practice.

How the Hair Is Handled

The cut hair is treated as a sacred object. It is not discarded or thrown away. Common practices include:

• Placing the hair in the casket with the deceased, alongside other travel items like wasna, tobacco, and moccasins
• Incorporating the hair into the soul-keeping bundle (Wanagi Yuhapi), where a lock of the deceased's hair is wrapped in sacred buckskin and kept for one year until the soul release ceremony
• Following the spiritual leader's direction for any hair that is not placed in the casket or soul bundle

The lock of the deceased's own hair is particularly significant. It is often cut by a family member or the medicine man during body preparation, then purified over sweetgrass smoke before being wrapped into the soul bundle. This bundle is kept in a special location in the home for the full year of mourning, cared for by the designated Soul Keeper.

Historical Context

Historically, Lakota mourning involved more intense physical expressions of grief. Mourners would make superficial cuts on their arms, slash their clothing, and cut their hair dramatically short as visible markers of anguish. While self-cutting is less common in contemporary urban settings, it remains a respected part of the historical record — understanding it helps explain why hair cutting today still carries such profound weight.

The boarding school era adds another layer to this practice. For decades, U.S. government and church-run boarding schools forcibly cut Native American children's hair as a deliberate act of cultural erasure. This history means that for many Lakota families, choosing to cut one's own hair in mourning is an act of reclamation — the same physical gesture weaponized against them is reclaimed as a sovereign spiritual practice under their own authority and on their own terms.

What Non-Native Family Members Should Know

If you are a non-Native spouse, in-law, or close friend and your Lakota family is practicing hair cutting during a funeral, you may be invited to participate — or you may not, depending on the family's traditions. Either way:

• Do not cut your hair independently as a gesture of solidarity without being invited. The meaning of the act comes from the spiritual and familial context, not the physical gesture alone.
• If invited, treat it as the honor it is. Ask the family member directing the mourning how they would like you to proceed.
• If not invited, this is not a rejection. Hair cutting may be reserved for blood relatives in some families. Your presence and support at the wake is its own form of participation.

The mourning practices surrounding a Lakota death involve far more than any single act. Our Lakota / Sioux Funeral Guide walks through the full year of mourning — from the first hair cutting through the Wiping of Tears ceremony twelve months later — with detailed timelines and guidance for families navigating these traditions for the first time.