Zitkala-Sa's The Cutting Of My Long Hair

Zitkala-Sa was a young girl apart of the Lakota nation during the post-civil war. At a very young age, she was taken away from her family by the whites and was forced to change her culture in a very short amount of time by being put into a boarding school. Zitkala-Sa wrote a story about this time in her life. She uses imagery in her story “The Cutting of My Long Hair” to respond to the horrible treatment of Native American’s by white people during 19th century American, including putting the native children in boarding schools, ripping their family away from them and cutting their beloved long hair.

During the westward expansion, white Americans created boarding schools for Native American children to civilize them in horrible ways. In her story “The Cutting of My Long Hair”, Zitkala-Sa talks about how she “cried aloud, shaking [her] head” because she was placed in a boarding school involuntarily. The whites made them move very far away to become American clones. The teachers at these schools were teaching their ways, culture, and the supposed right way of life. Zitkala-Sa also found “better educational opportunities” for native children very important (Britannica.com). This was because the boarding

schools that the whites put the Native Americans in was not good for their education and she wanted to change it. She was aware of this since she experienced the horrible treatment. She went to one of these boarding schools and hated it. The children barely spoke any English and they were often left out from the other children because they were seen as different. Their skin color was different from the whites and they spoke a different language. Therefore, the native children weren’t benefitted in anyway.
When the native children were brought to these boarding schools, they were taken away from their families, language and culture. The goal of the boarding schools was to civilize the Native children so that when they were older, they could go into American society and feel normal around the whites. They were “taught that their language was evil and came from the devil” so they were taught English. When the Native children ate their first meal with the white children, it was different than what Zitkala-Sa was used to. The children all walked into the dining hall and “the annoying clatter of shoes” was all she could hear. She didn’t know what to do. All the children “hung their heads over their plates” when a man started talking. CONCLUDING STATEMENT
The Native children in the boarding schools all had very long hair compared to the white children.

The Americans cut the Natives hair in order for them to look the same as the whites. In the native culture, long hair was a sign of wisdom, power and the essence of your soul. They would cut their hair as a sign of mourning. Zitkala-Sa “remembers being dragged out [from under the bed]” so her hair could be cut. She tried to resist “by kicking and scratching wildly” but it was not enough. She was tied to a chair and “felt the cold blade of scissors and heard them gnaw off one of [her] thick braids”. Since long hair was apart of the essence of their sould, she “lost [her] spirit” after her hair had been cut. The only part of her culture that stayed with her was now

gone.
During the post-civil war time, the Native American children had such a change in culture so quickly. The children didn’t understand much English so they had to learn a whole new language. They were essentially brain washed to be white. The pale face had a motto; “Kill the Indian and save the man.”