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Sacred Headdress is formally linked to four religions in this atlas: Ancient Egyptian Religion, Native American Religion, Lakota Religion and Yoruba Religion (Ifa). Three of the four are registered as living restricted traditions in this atlas, each for a reason the tradition has stated in its own public terms rather than one this atlas has inferred. The fourth, Ancient Egyptian Religion, carries no such registration, and reading the difference is itself the finding.

Three Traditions State Their Own Restriction

Lakota Religion's restriction is a public declaration: the Lakota Summit V declaration of 1993 objects to outside conduct of Lakota ceremonies, and this atlas names the seven sacred rites without describing their procedures. Yoruba Religion states that entry into the Ifa priesthood, the offices of babalawo and iyanifa, passes through closed initiation, and this atlas records that the initiation is closed without publishing what is transmitted within it. Native American Religion is recorded here as a broad category covering hundreds of distinct nations, whose office of medicine person can be described in general while the ceremonies belonging to individual nations are not reproduced. Three different traditions and three different institutions share one position: describe that the office and the restriction exist, and stop there.

What One Case Makes Concrete

Sacred Headdress's own record makes the pattern concrete with the Plains war bonnet, which belongs to particular nations of the northern Plains, where each feather was earned by a specific act and the right to wear one is conferred rather than assumed. Its use as festival dress and fashion has been objected to formally and repeatedly by those nations, and bans at music festivals since 2014 followed directly from that request. Ancient Egyptian crowns, by contrast, mark a kingship many thousands of years closed and carry no living community's objection attached to them. The pattern that unites the other three is not the shape of any headdress. It is a living tradition still asking that a specific claim of office not be made by an outsider who has not earned it.

Where To Read More

• Sacred HeaddressCeremonial RegaliaSacred Headdress; four religions, three of them registered restricted traditions, one open case for contrast
• Lakota ReligionPolytheistic (Animist)Lakota Religion; the Lakota Summit V declaration of 1993, the seven sacred rites named without their procedures
• Yorùbá Religion (Ifá)Polytheistic (Animist)Yoruba Religion (Ifa); closed initiation into the babalawo and iyanifa priesthood
• Native American ReligionPolytheistic (Animist)Native American Religion; hundreds of distinct nations, the medicine person described in general, no single nation's ceremony reproduced
• Ancient Egyptian ReligionPolytheistic (Historical)Ancient Egyptian Religion; the one case with no living tradition's restriction attached