Google "should I wear a headdress to a music festival?" and you are met with enough reading material to rival a night of binge-watching the latest season of Orange is the New Black.
But don't ditch your date with Netflix just yet. If you are attending the Edmonton Folk Music Festival this weekend, your fashion query has already been answered.
After five to 10 minutes of reading through the multitude of articles, blog posts and petitions from aboriginal people, activists and academics, Folk Fest producer Terry Wickham had made up his mind to join three other Canadian music festivals to ban the questionable accessory, which has become synonymous with festival and hipster culture over the last few years.
This summer, three Montreal festivals, îleSoniq, Osheaga and Heavy Montréal, made it clear to festivalgoers that their feathered accouterments would not be welcome.
While this has never been an issue for Edmonton's Folk Fest – nor for the three Montreal events – Wickham wanted to be proactive after a recent backlash from the Twittersphere over a Winnipeg Folk Fest attendee's choice to wear a garment traditionally reserved for ceremonial purposes.
Not wanting to be caught with their pants down – also not an acceptable fashion statement by the way – in the event someone did show up wearing a headdress, Wickham decided a policy was needed now rather than later.
"It's a thing that's bigger in the U.S. and in England. But these trends have a way of manifesting themselves here as well eventually, so we just wanted to get ahead of it," said Wickham.
Bass Coast electronic music festival, in Merritt, B.C., has had a similar policy in place since last year. Organizers wrote on its Facebook page in July 2014: "We understand why people are attracted to war bonnets. They have a magnificent esthetic. But their spiritual, cultural and esthetic significance cannot be separated."
A similar post on Facebook by Osheaga last month in which it asked fans and artists not to wear the symbol as a fashion accessory received almost 12,500 likes, 3,158 shares and 767 comments, in which arguments of cultural appropriation were met with cries for freedom of expression.
For Robert Johnson, interim cultural adviser at Poundmaker Lodge in Sturgeon County and member of the Maskwacis Plains Cree near Ponoka, the ban at Edmonton's Folk Fest was welcome news.
In Cree culture, elders, or those who hold chieftainship of a community during ceremonies, typically wear headdresses, also known as war bonnets.
The eagle feathers that adorn the regalia are sacred and to receive them is a great honour.
"Part of the reason we're so insulted by these mockeries is because they're not made with real eagle feathers; they're not made by anybody who is a practitioner in it. There's no ceremony attached to it. And they wear them where they are drinking and drugging and carrying on like a bunch of, for lack of a better term, savages," Johnson said.
"That's not what the bonnet for us represents. It's a regal thing; it's a spiritual thing; it's a cultural thing; and it's not to be made light of."
James Dempsey, an associate professor with the University of Alberta's Native Studies department and a member of the Blood Indian Tribe in southern Alberta, thinks the ban is a product of hypersensitivity and is not necessary.
He says not all bonnets are sacred – only those that were presented in ceremony.
But Dempsey believes the headdress question points to a bigger issue than the misuse of a spiritually significant garment.
"If it's offending people that needs to be looked at and why," he said.
Let's take another trip to Google. Remember that scene when Peter Pan meets Tiger Lily's father, the chief? Take a look at his headdress.
Now key in Victoria's Secret, plus the magic word: headdress. Repeat with popular ska band No Doubt's "Too Hot" music video.
Notice any similarities between these three images? The long, circular full-feathered bonnets perhaps?
Most pop culture depictions of quote-unquote native culture stem from Plains tribes, such as the Sioux and the Cree. And that's problematic, said Dempsey.
Even the NHL's Chicago Blackhawk fans adorn full-feathered bonnets, despite the team logo's somewhat accurate depiction of the feathers of the Sauk tribe, from which the famous leader originated.
His father calls it "instant tradition."
"Someone who views native culture in the singular," said Dempsey.
In reality, there are more than 600 different bands within Canada, each with its own history, its own traditions and its own regalia. They cannot be painted with one broad stroke said Dempsey, who hopes that the recent bonnet-driven conversations will bring more awareness to this issue.
Tania Harnett, an artist and U of A professor, supports the ban, but hopes it raises the same questions as her colleague poses.
"I think it's time for people to start asking the questions that they don't know," she said. "North American history is a lot longer than people think. Those headdresses have been here for a long time, so what does it mean before western culture adopts it and makes it into a costume."
What you should know about Plains Cree headdresses
Robert Johnson, interim cultural adviser at Poundmaker Lodge in Sturgeon County, tells the Gazette more about the cultural significance of headdresses to Plains Cree, which make up many of the communities around Edmonton.
• Cree headdresses are made of eagle feathers, which have a special spiritual significance. In Cree culture, the eagle is seen as the eyes of the Creator, because of their telescopic vision and the amazing heights they can achieve, which bring the animal close to the Creator.
• Ceremony is a vital part of receiving a headdress. It's against Cree culture to record a bonnet ceremony.
• Headdresses are typically given to chiefs, but can also be given to people who are held in high regard within their communities.
• The person who makes the bonnets has to be a bona fide bonnet maker – try saying that 10 times fast – earning the right to make them by apprenticing under an elder.
• Traditionally, women do not wear eagle bonnets. Women are believed to be closer to the Creator than men are, and don't need ceremonies and accoutrements to physically get closer to a higher power.
Edmonton Folk Music Festival's new policy on headdresses
Festivalgoers seen wearing a Native American headdress as a fashion accessory and not for ceremonial purposes will be asked to either take it off or leave festival grounds. If the individual chooses to leave they will be refunded their ticket. Anyone seen at the door will be asked to place the headdress in safekeeping with festival staff.
