Iroquois Hair Comb Education and Art Project

I ran into my old friend Simon Brascoupe today at a meeting I was facilitating here in Vancouver. Simon is a man of many hats: he has taught at Trent University, University of Manitoba and Carleton in contemporay Aboriginal economic development; he has worked in Chiapas and on international indigenous rights; he is a sometime federal government public servant, currently with the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada; and he is a well known artist in Canada, working with print and paint and anything else he can get his hands on.

Over Thai food at lunch today he told me about the Iroquois Hair Comb Education and Art Project. Simon’s passion for this topic seems out of all proportion to the subject, until you realize that what he and his artistic partner are doing is nothing less than revitalizing an important and lost art which is integral to Iroquian culture. Not only that, but through the course of this work, they are discovering that hair combs are very important personal, spiritual and community objects in indigenous societies all over the world.

Hair plays an important role in Iroquian history. The Peacemaker, a man who brought the Great Law of Peace to the Confederacy, combed the snakes and tangles from the hair of Tododaho, an evil and deadly Onondaga wizard who stood in the way of the peace. With his hair ritually combed, Tododaho consented to the Great Law and the peace took root amonst the five nations of the Iroquois confederacy. Simon told me a version of this story where the hair then transforms into the roots of the pine tree that became known as the tree of peace. Given this story, you can see how combs would take on great importance.

More on this here and here (with video).