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cattraine May 11 2014, 03:20:42 UTC
According to this the cutting is limited to women and warriors shave the left side of their heads and there is a extended mourning period.

http://afernand1.tripod.com

A bit more detail here: http://boards.ancestry.com/topics.ethnic.natam.nations.comanche.comanchenat/164.1/mb.ashx

General info on Native American rites here: http://traditionscustoms.com/death-rites/native-american-death-rites

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spikesjojo May 11 2014, 07:23:26 UTC
Have him shave his head - the body must be properly prepared before rigor sets in, like most nations the belongings are burnt or buried. His weapons and sadlle must accompany him to the grave and a horse is killed for him to have a horse to ride in the next land. He would not cut himself - that's only the woman closest to him, but he could probably shave his head close enough to bleed. After the burial his name is not spoken so that his spirit does not return. This is actually very like Romani custom ( ... )

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mamamiau May 11 2014, 13:46:42 UTC
I googled "Comanche mourning customs Smithsonian" because I knew the Smithsonian's Bureau of ethnology had published a large number of studies on most North American Indian tribes. The following is from the Yarrow treatise cited by others in this thread. You can go to this link and do a "find on page" for Comanche to locate the passage quoted below, which I had to truncate because of length:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32938/32938-h/mortuary.html

Another excellent reference on the Comanche is Comanches: The History of a People by T.R. Fehrenbach. My copy is packed up so I can't consult it, but I recommend it as an excellent and authoritative starting point for research on the Comanches. It is also very readable ( ... )

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