Title: Deployment Tradition – Mohawks

Informant info: Graham “Ossie” Osborn. Informant attends Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH as a United States Marine Corps Veteran. Informant was a member of the First Reconnaissance Battalion.

Type of lore: Customary/Verbal, Tradition, Ritual, Ceremony

Language: English

Country of Origin: USA

Social / Cultural Context: Informant was interviewed at Dartmouth College. Informant was asked about any tradition or rituals and discussed the tradition of cutting ones hair into a mohawk on deployment and then eventually cutting it down to regulation length.

Associated file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z1us1frzhrn0u2t/IMG_7545.MOV?dl=0

Transcript: Item: [I have recorded the item exactly how it was told to me in the interview]: The only one I can really remember. I ended up going to the second recon battalion, for the first guys that would go oversees they would shave their head into Mohawks or shave them completely, because Mohawks were without regulation, but almost everyone shaved their head into Mohawks until they got called out on it, or they would wait until they got into country and on their first mission they would shave their heads into Mohawks, which is something that I think has just been passed down through the military, I don’t really know the background behind it except for airborne units did it in world war II. I remember a lot of people took part in that.

Informant’s comments: Life on Parris Island was tough, but taught the recruits what it meant to be a Marine.

Collector’s comments:  Informant was unsure of the superstition associated with the mohawk haircut, but knew that there was one.