# native american cut noses of wives
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [May 28, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025 "2010-05-28T02:52:48Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@lakohana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lakohana)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/1 "2010-05-28T02:52:48Z")
The author of this article has not posted his/her references regarding this subject so viewers may do more research. Much of what has been submitted is false and stereotypes Native Americans.
I am Odawa from the First Nations of Canada. I have spent over 20 years living off and on with the Lakota in South Dakota. I am a ceremonial dancer in their tradition,know their language, stories, songs, ceremonies, social structure, history and culture.I have attended Oglala Lakota College, have a BS degree in American Indian Studies from Black Hills State University in addition a BS Sociology, MBA and currently about to begin a doctorate. I have just returned to Hawaii in 2006 after living and being with the Lakota for six and a half years.
Most cultures have stories which can be described as myths to use as teaching tools depicting characters who portray negative human qualities.
The story of nose cutting is actually from a story of the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota peoples from a being called Anog Ite - Double Faced Woman who brought the skill of quill work to the women from which sacred societies were formed. It depicts a human characteristic of human envy and jealousy. It is not an actual event.
If the reserach of the European pioneer is correct it needs to be documented correctly.
In the European(American) culture there are also stories which depict what the author has called us Natives - savages. Take the story of Bluebeard, the Salem Witch Hunts, or any of the tales and children’s stories of which Bruno Bettleheim wrote about in describing the healing aspects of such stories for children to be able to release unwanted tensions of fear.Such stories teach lessons and is something most cultures use as a teaching tool. Story telling has been popular amongst many cultures including bibilical stories which portray the human condition and human characteristics.
Shall we then call you savages? To portray us in this manner goes against the policies of this site of which I have read and agreed to. These are comments which are inaccurate,abusive,hateful and harassing to just mention a few which are stated in regards to posting.
I demand an apology from Cecil, the author to the Native American people. Cecil’s comments and article have also been posted on Facebook.
As a researcher and writer I have been taught that references are to be posted about said research and opinions. Second, research should add to a body of knowledge, not to put people down.
I would suggest studying your own history regarding the Native people of this land and can be accessed at UCLA, UC Davis and other scholar programs within the US.
Further it should be noted the massacres committed on tribes such as Wounded Knee, the Sand Creek Massacre and many more to numerous to mention here across the continent. Would you consider these to be the acts of savages? If not how do you rationalize those atrocities?What about Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee - has the author researched this publication.
To call us savages is unacceptable.
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### Author:  [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/2 "2010-05-28T03:00:33Z")
References are listed at the bottom of the article: [Did Native Americans cut off the noses of adulterous wives? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2939/did-native-americans-cut-off-the-noses-of-adulterous-wives)
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### Author:  [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/3 "2010-05-28T03:01:40Z")
Moving to Comments on Cecil’s Columns.
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### Author:  [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/4 "2010-05-28T03:11:58Z")
> [@lakohana](#):
>
> I would suggest studying your own history regarding the Native people of this land
So if Cecil wrote something like
> [@](#):
>
> Christopher Columbus ordered his men to cut off the nose and ears of any native guilty of theft. After the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, Andrew Jackson’s soldiers cut off the noses of 557 slain Red Stick Creek Indians, and some skinned the bodies to make souvenir bridle reins. So nonnatives weren’t known for their high-class behavior either. Maximilian says white men who’d taken Indian wives punished adultery the same way Blackfeet males did.
you’d be happy?
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/5 "2010-05-28T03:15:32Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#):
>
> References are listed at the bottom of the article: [Did Native Americans cut off the noses of adulterous wives? - The Straight Dope](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2939/did-native-americans-cut-off-the-noses-of-adulterous-wives)
As an FYI, if the OP read the column online at another site (such as the City Paper’s site) or else read it in hardcopy, they wouldn’t see any sources.
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/6 "2010-05-28T03:39:16Z")
Welcome to the SDMB, Lakohana.
I can’t speak for Cecil, but I think that if you reread the article that he wrote, you will find many of the answers that you are looking for.
As **Ferret Herder** mentioned, the references that **Cecil** used in writing this article are found at the bottom of the article. I take no position on whether or not these references are correct. It’s possible that nose cutting was only a story or a myth among the Lakota, but were a reality in tribes that were far away. But I don’t know that that is true.
But **Cecil** does go on to make the point that any American Indian who engaged in domestic violence would be no different from other men who are brutal in this way. He gives examples of Christopher Columbus and Andrew Jackson, the men of Afghanistan, and so on. His point is that all cultures may have men who act as savages. (Frankly, I don’t think that women are all that different. Consider women suicide bombers.)
## I think that it is a savage deed that those of us who waste heating oil or electricity leave people to live in houses with no insulation and no heat at Pine Ridge.
We are savages until Leonard is free.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-american-cut-noses-of-wives/541025/7 "2010-05-28T04:04:44Z")
> [@lakohana](#):
>
> To call us savages is unacceptable.
It looks to me like Cecil went out of his way to say that people can be pretty savage in general and Native Americans were no worse than anybody else. If these things did happen, describing them as savage is fair. But that being said I’m interested in your view on this and your sources in saying this didn’t happen; I haven’t read Cecil’s sources so I can’t evaluate how trustworthy they are.
I did do a brief internet search and found this passage. It’s from
[The Sun Dance and Other Ceremonies of the Oglala Division of The Teton Dakota, written by J. R. Walker in 1917.](http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/pla/sdo/index.htm) [In Waving the Wands, Walker’s translator says a part of the Hunka ceremony goes like this](http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/pla/sdo/sdo42.htm):
> [@](#):
>
> This is what the Bear said to me:–'The young man should have the horse-tails waved over him; he will provide for his women and children; he will be brave and truthful and the people will listen to him; be will have plenty and give freely; he shall never cut the nose of his woman. My grandson; I have prepared a fetish. I will give it to you. If you will be controlled by its potency, it will be thus with you. This fetish has the potency of the Bear. He told me how to make it. Then I asked the Bear what he would tell me. Standing like a man He said, ‘Iya and Iktomi are traveling.’ I will explain this to you. If you are lazy or a coward you will sleep with the coyotes. You should not cut your woman’s nose. No woman will gash her flesh for you. The buffalo will laugh at you. If you tell lies Iktomi will trick you. Anog Ite will show you both her faces. Your women will stiffer and your babes will have pains in their bowels. But if you listen to the Shamans the South Wind will stay with you. If you laugh at the Shamans, Wazi will stay with you. I will now wave the horsetails over you."
Walker explains:
> [@](#):
>
> The purport of the address is that the Bear God first showed to the Shaman that which indicated an honorable future and then told what must be done to attain this future, the last of which is, “He shall never cut the nose of his woman.” This alludes to the Lakota custom which permitted a man to cut off the tip of the nose of his woman if she was unfaithful to him.