Primary Source

“Late in the morning, my friend Judewin gave me a terrible warning. Judewin knew a few words of English; and she had overheard the pale face woman talk about cutting our long heavy hair. Our mothers had taught us that only unskilled warriors who were captured had their hair shingled by the enemy. Among our people short hair was worn by mourners and shingled hair by cowards! . . . I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck and heard them knot off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Since the day I was taken from my mother, I had suffered extreme indignities. People had stared at me. I'd been tossed about in the air like a wooden puppet. And now my long hair was shingled like a coward’s! In my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to comfort me. Not a soul reasoned quietly with me as my own mother used to do. For now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.”

 - Zitkála-Šá, “School Days of an Indian Girl,” 1900. (The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)