Boys with Braids event highlights sacredness of hair
- Jeanelle Mandes | April 10, 2016
He grew his hair since he was a baby but coming home to find out someone had cut his hair at school was one of the most saddening moments in this grandmother’s life.
“It was such a devastating thing that happened. I was almost in tears. I braiding his hair in the morning…and I noticed how shorter it was by three or four inches. It really hurt me when that happened,” says Irene Mosquito, who lives in Regina.
Seven-years-old Sage Mosquito, who is in Grade 1 and attends the Seven Stones Community School, reenacted the scene to his grandmother from that day that took place in November.
“He had his head down walking towards the garbage,” she reflects back. “[My grandson] knew the boys who did that…the teacher didn’t try have them together to try understand what they did.”
Following the incident, Mosquito went to the school frantically trying to get answers and had a talk with the principal concluding that he was going to get an elder to talk to the kids but Mosquito feels that more should have been done which is why she feels the “Boys with Braids” was an important event to have in the community.
“[The event] taught people about the sacredness of and the boundaries and also for other people to understand.”
That was of the one of the highlights in Dion Tootoosis’s presentation that evening. Tootoosis presented about the sacredness of hair which he also gave his historical perspective behind the cultural tradition.
“The sacredness of hair is a cultural identifier, we have this unique quality of wearing our hair long and in braids that stands out in many other different cultures,” he says. “Tonight is important because we want to send a message out that the shaming is still going on, the hurt is still being committed in our schools, in our homes, in our communities, and our institutions and businesses and it has to end.”
Tootoosis says the event was a good way to break down the communication barriers between genders, gender expressions, and between age groups. The campaign was initially started by Tootoosis’s younger cousin, Michael Linklater from Saskatoon, who launched the awareness campaign with hopes of ending the bullying targeting younger males who wear their hair long and to instill the pride.
The campaign has gained national attention with cities such as Edmonton and Winnipeg that have adopted Linklater’s campaign where males of all ages post photos and their reasons why they grow their hair long on social media.
“We got to stop working in isolation, we have to learn to work together and to combine funding and to find resources to have events like this so that we build cultural capacity,” says Tootoosis.
The event took place at the University of Regina in the Teacher Preparation Centre on March 23rd with many guest speakers including youth guest star, Isaiah Tootoosis, who was featured on film The Revenant.