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Hair Is An Extension Of Your Spirit: Native American Wisdom · We Are Spiraling

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's our story.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hair significance in my culture, our native culture, is a physical materialization and visual depiction of our history, of our story.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: For it to grow long and healthy, you know, one has to be as best they can that way inside.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is Priya Anand, and we are spiraling.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: In this show, we talk about curly hair to learn more about our culture, from our personal identity to how the world sees us.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: Native American tradition holds hair as sacred.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: I want to spend as little time as possible introducing this episode to you because I want you to hear from the native voices we're speaking with on why they view hair that way.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we're jumping right in.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: My name is John Parker and I do hair and makeup in film and television.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm Osage Native American, born and raised.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: However, I'm also Osage, Delaware, Cop Bal Shone, and Choctaw.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a lot in one breath.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then I route most to my Osage and Delaware traditions.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_02: John lives in Oklahoma.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: He first got into styling for film and television while he was completing cosmetology school, and some Oklahoma University students working on their film degrees asked him for help with their silent film.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: One thing led to another, and he kept getting more work.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: In 2021, he was pulled onto the styling team for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon with Lily Gladstone, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Robert De Niro.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: In preparing to talk to John, I had tried Googling around for details on hair textures and hairstyling in various Native American cultures, and I had a hard time finding much information on the internet.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Born in the 20s, lived through all these decades, my aunts and everybody, and then watching my aunts get ready and prepared for themselves, you know, through the 90s and 2000s.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: What role does hair play in your culture?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's our story.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Hair significance in in my culture, our native culture, is a physical materialization and visual depiction of our history, of our story.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: For it to grow long and healthy, you know, one has to be as best they can that way inside.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's also like an extension of our nervous system as an antenna, so it's a living thing.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: That's also why, like, even in our tribe, you know, there would be well, O stage is just full-on beheaded people when they were at war or at indifference.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: But scalping, you know, the idea behind removing someone's scalp means that they'll be bought on the next side, that they won't be able to be show up on that other side as themselves as they know themselves to be, for their scalp will be missing and forever stuck here in this dimension.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we do believe there's a lot of life, a lot of power in your hair.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so to treat it respectfully and sacredly and be mindful that like your hair were always growing, there's always room to grow, and if you nourish yourself, you can also achieve a full head of perceived as beautiful hair.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think all hair is beautiful.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: That is such a beautiful philosophy.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right on.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean it's a part of us.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then some people believe, even myself, especially when I've gone from having super long hair to like short hair, this connection of like it being like your antenna and it sensing when different energy or an intuitive need for awareness to be had.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: John says his grandparents passed down a practice within the family that when you're grimming yourself, you're telling yourself a story based on how you're speaking to yourself.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: So speak well to yourself.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: Don't reflect negativity back onto yourself when you're in front of a mirror.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: Think about what you desire.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: It reminds me of the saying that there are two wolves inside you, one that's negative and one that's positive.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: The wolf you feed is the wolf that grows.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: It turns out that's actually considered to be a Cherokee belief in origin.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: You also want to be thinking of the things you're like relaxing from, letting go of, the things you're calming yourself through, the stuff you're finding that peace you seek within you.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it comes out in just even that calm motion motion of brushing your hair.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in speaking kind thinking kind and speaking kind, that will help you internally and exteriorly experience that peace.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: What was it like to work on Killers of the Flower Moon and how did you prepare for hair and makeup for that movie?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: With a lot of prayer, daily prayer, I prepared for that one.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I grew up in my culture.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up around all our photos where we've always been a very, you know, we're well-documented people, so there's a lot of images of us that exist from like our, you know, earliest existence to now.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so preparing for that was me just contributing what I know as far as what we look like, what families look like?
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I grew my heartbeat right into that film.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: If you haven't seen Killers of the Flower Moon, we describe a pivotal scene here, so there will be a spoiler, but it's essential to John's story.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: How did it feel to be preparing for, you know, those days of shooting and doing someone's hair and recreating what you up until that point, I assume got mostly only seen on your living room walls, not on TV and not on big screens.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Recreating those looks on Coast Far Mood was like surreal every day to see it come to life.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was the excitement getting to go to work and knowing that your story's being told.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: A story that has, you know, even for us have kept a secret.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like we wanted to put a low light on it because we don't want, you know, in that time, that money, that oil, that attention came with more than anybody would have asked for.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so since then, over time, we've wanted to not be as loud.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we're quiet or that we're shy or, you know, super meek or anything, but not want that attention.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So even our story has been shared amongst ourselves, but not on this huge platform.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've been written about in multiple books over time.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that movie, that book, really, whether you were ready or not, we were twisting the lid off of a shaken up soda, you know, and it was my great-great-grandfather, Henry Rome's murder case, that convicted William Hill of murder.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm totally connected to this particular story too.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like his granddaughter is my great-grandma.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so I grew up in her home.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: That was my home.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we knew of these stories growing up.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: We knew who her grandpa was, how he was, knowing the community and everything.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So then to see how Hollywood created that character in that way was was a was interesting in its own self.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I do appreciate that Marty and other ones on the production and those writers took time to meet with our family and consider our input and thoughts and also just let us know that we will be telling the story in there as best we can be prepared.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see him get shot in the back of the head like it was done.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was a big shaker for like a lot of our relatives, but I was ready for it to happen because I'm ready for this story to be out there like that.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Spiritually, it shook you up a bit because you stirred up a lot of, you know, historical trauma that stored in our bodies that we already connect to, watching these stories be told and depicted, and these deaths happen again, and these people live happily and sorrowfully all over again.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: The Hollywood rendering of what a Native American looks like is often one look long, straight, jet black hair with braids.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: John has brought his real life experience as an Osage into his film and television styling work.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: He says that like most things, Hollywood is just creating a visual shorthand to signal to the viewer that a certain type of person has arrived on screen.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: I think for the most part, they've done their best to achieve a look that I don't want to call stereotypical look, but like a standard, you know, iconic-esque look that allows for a viewer to be like, okay, that's got to be this representing that.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: But they did get lost in the creating just one one look to represent us across the board.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And as we know, we can look like we can look like people in our own neighborhoods, even if there's not a native living in your neighborhood.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: We can still look like you.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: So we our hair can be styled in all ways, all masses, down loose.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't totally have to be straight or in a braid or two braids.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're not just braids in straight hair.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: We are wind in their hair.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, for real, you know, it can live in its natural state.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: It can be super curly or it can be straight.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like there was a long period of time when you only saw that straight hair, and also that straight black hair.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of us like there are some that have that black hair, like there's no doubt about it, it's black.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: But majority of people have that brown, they have those red tones in their hair, so it's like that deep dark chocolate brown and black.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like if Hollywood would have spent a little more money on some hair than when they were, you know, putting all those wigs on their actors to represent us, they should have thrown some brown wigs, you know.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Just to balance that out.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: That black got real barstool-y my aunt would say that.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Barstool black.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said earlier, I had a hard time finding much detailed information on specific hair practices, rituals, and styling before speaking with John.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to know how do you prepare for recreating these hairstyles for characters?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: What does the research process look like?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do you even attempt to create historically accurate representations of indigenous Americans with the information that's out there?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they did their best to create those looks, those images based on what history and information they had available to them at that time.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, in most books' writings, the descriptions of us were also very it seemed like everybody, I guess, looked like that according to whoever was writing, you know, collectively, everybody looked the same.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: There was not but but as noted, like with an Osage culture that like we had hair symbols that would even determine one's age or one's status within the community, you know, whether they are of a firstborn, secondborn, or of a young man of a boy, or of an older man, or whether they're a warrior hunter or gatherer, you know, their hair would be shaved a certain way, cut to a certain length, styled in a certain way, scalp, you know, shaved all the way off, or you know, or you'd see hair growth, or you would never see hair growth.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how they were achieving those waxes back then.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we didn't all just look the same.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So like sometimes, you know, seeing that in old film or old television western was a little bit disheartening.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But then at the same time, they did only give us like what 20% of their you know, their show that was supposed to be, I guess, Indons vs.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Cowboys 24-7, but we still got a 20 20% pop-up, like, oh, that's what you looked like.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: So which part was I thinking of the most?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: How we looked or how long we were there?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because also too, I feel like, you know, they missed it sometimes in some of the stories where when, you know, whatever tribe it was they were battling at the time, they would find defeat, and those warriors would take away the remains just like they would with any animal kill.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we did have their coats and their modernized even wardrobe to be utilizing for ourselves and then incorporate that, break that down, turn a dom deal.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we weren't also just like loin claws or buckskin running around with straighter braided hair, too.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Were you ever asked to create a representation where you had to actually be like, oh no, actually, if you want to be accurate, we need to be doing this instead.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like people were asking for something that's maybe a bit more monolithified or stereotyped.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to me about those experiences.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Honey, a lot goes through the brain in those moments because well, you know, you want you want to give your best and provide your best, and you also want to fulfill the request as it's being described.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So, like going into research.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I was working on this one project, and the the people that they were filming that they were depicting in these stories that they represented, they they wanted this certain look, and I was like, okay, yeah, let's get in there, let's everybody boom.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, wait, we've done this and created this pretty look, but now like now we can expand.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Were there any other hairstyles or that we can play with for these men, for these women, for more variety?
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm asking like the community members that were playing these parts, you know, that were also enrolled citizens of that nation, and asking them what they knew, getting their you know, word of mouth information to incorporate, and then also asking for the you know their culture advisors, their researchers, what kind of images they came up with.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I didn't have the time to like do the most in-depth, and Google doesn't always give you everything, you still need to access library or at least a community private library when you can.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I asked for what they had, and girl, they had in their and their vision board photos of other tribes, hairstyles, and I was like, I okay, so this is inspirational.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: You could visually see the difference between the Maya, Inca, and Aztec.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but so there's there'd be challenges out there that you do face when wanting to be, you know, historically accurate, culturally respectful, and considerate, and then also fulfilling the service requested from you on what their eye would like to see.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a balance.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: Take a beat, breathe through it, and then yeah, ask questions.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ask questions.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Don't get don't get quiet, especially if you're full of all these questions.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know these people in your community that are playing these parts, these background actors and others, making them look like literally the people in your museum walking out of the photos and onto your street?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: Walking out of the photos and onto your street.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: When John says that, I think of Selena McManus.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Selena is a professional hairstylist, salon owner, and educator in Oakland, California.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: She's an enrolled member of the Tohono Autumn Nation, which resides mostly in Southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Tohono Autumn translates to desert people.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: To John's point, most of the information around Native and Indigenous practices has been retained and gathered only through specific lenses, and much of the actual knowledge is stored within the communities themselves.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need me to tell you that the US government has time and time again, including now, erased Native American history.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: And their hair is part of that story.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: When the government forced Native American families to send their children to boarding school, their hair was forcibly cut.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And when we do talk about Native Americans, well.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think people just talk about us in past tense.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, imagine being a little girl in your elementary school, and oh, a next unit is about natives, and they were and they used to be.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: We were just treated as a monolith.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very loud and proud about it because I was very close with my grandmother.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was only raised by indigenous women, my mother and her sisters.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I have a lot of sympathy for my mom and her sisters because my grandma really didn't teach them much.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, their father was white, and my grandma kind of kept that to herself.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't fault her for that.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure if it was assimilation.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: She went to an Indian boarding school in Kansas called Haskell, and I'm the generation that's loud about it.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one that you know shows up with the native earrings and tribal tattoos, and I'm really proud of that.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm proud to be my friend's native homie and teach people more when I learn because I'm still learning myself as a reconnecting native.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: As a city Indian, I wasn't raised on our reservation and didn't have a lot of knowledge with my tribe and with my tribe's practices.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this is something I've been learning in my 30s, and I'm almost gonna be, I think I'm gonna be 40 next year, so I'm still taking time to learn about that.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I think indigenous hair is sacred.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think that, you know, touching someone's hair is sacred and that care is sacred, and indigenous people believe that their hair is an extension of their spirit.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I get to take care of an Indigenous person, I'm deeply honored and, you know, overwhelmed with gratitude because we take our hair very seriously, and so do other cultures.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have children that are Tongan, and Polynesian hair care is very serious and very sacred as well.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think people also have to realize indigenous people across the globe have so much more in common than we realize we're really connected.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: What Selena's saying reminds me of Sikh culture and how hair has grown long as a respect for God's creation and a representation of faith.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: In Hinduism, there are various spiritual connections around hair, shaving rituals to mark morning, or one called mundan, where a baby's first set of hair is shaved to shed any negative karma from past lives.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: The Japanese word for comb, kushibi, means working with spirits.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_02: When you consider all this, you see how we all really share so much.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: My earliest memories of hair are laying in my grandma's lap on a Saturday, and it was, you know, just a relaxing day, but I would wake up with a braid.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: So every Saturday I would request a braid from my grandma, and she got older, and I vividly remember my mom like, you have to stop asking her hands hurt.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so offended.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was so crushed, and I just remember looking at my mom like you're crazy.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ask for my braids.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: Selena brings these philosophies into her practice at Oakland's native studio salon.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: She calls it decolonizing hair.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: Her grandmother moved to Oakland, California as part of the Indian Relocation Act and joined a cosmetology program started by the YMCA.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_02: Selena later followed in her footsteps.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Decolonizing your hair began when I started to wear my hair natural personally.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a curly Indian, which is rare, and I'm really proud of it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: So decolonizing your hair began when we started to question in the beauty world professionalism and what that looks like and how it impacts black women and how they wear their hair and then how they inspired other people with natural hair to wear their hair.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: The spirituality and energy we put into hair and how we treat our clients and our own hair.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: I really have always loved to wear my hair brushed out, and I imagine that's how my ancestors were.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we weren't super focused on what people thought we should look like, and we just were natural people.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And indigenous hair is sacred because it is an extension of our spirit, and it should not be touched by just anyone.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Energy is transferable, it should be held with honor, it should be deemed beautiful no matter how it is, and it's important.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the highest honors I've ever received were my clients who come back and they say, My grandma or my mom said you have buena mano, like you have warm hands that help grow the hair.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm washing my clients' hair or taking care of them, I really try to like, I don't want to spill my secret, but I really like listen to them.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when I'm washing their hair, I think about the things that they're struggling with and try to wish them less stress or success or landing that new job or you know, finding the partner of their dreams, whatever they're really looking for, rest, vacation, abundance.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think about those things and I really wish that for them.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think a lot of people don't realize that the person that's touching you, that energy is transferable.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's not a right match.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's not, then you should find someone that you align with more and makes you feel good.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Priya Anand and I'm sending you my best energy with this show.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you feel it, please follow us on whatever podcasting app you're listening from and on social media.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: And please share your love for us there.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: We're on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at We Are Spiraling.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: As a new show, it really helps other people find us too.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: On We ARSpiraling.com, we keep the conversation going.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: We're posting images of John and Selena's incredible work there.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: We Are Spiraling is produced by Citizens of Sound and hosted by my upcoming hair care line, Myura, where we believe curly hair is an incredible part of who you are.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: You can find our wait list at MyuraBeauty.com.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: Theme music by the one and only love gun.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: Talk to you soon.