On the day Ned leaves for boarding school, his mother adorns herself in her finest clothing and traditional turquoise and silver jewelry. Ned remarks that she wants him to remember this image of her. The fine jewelry she wears represents the strength, dignity, and beauty Ned sees in the people of his community. When Ned gets to boarding school, the jewelry and ornaments that his parents packed for him are taken away and sold by white people. This represents how the Navajo children’s culture was stripped from them when they entered the mission school.

Sacred tribal custom calls for Navajo men and women to wear their hair long. The belief is that cutting one’s hair will bring a person misfortune. When the Navajo children are brought to the mission school, administrators immediately cut their hair, which makes Ned feel ashamed. At first, Ned doesn’t realize the other children and adults at the school are Navajo, as they’ve all had their hair cut. When Ned joins the Marine Corps, his hair is buzzed shorter than he has ever worn it. Many Navajo Marines are disconcerted by this close haircut:

Even though most of us has already had our hair cut short when we went to Indian boarding school as children, we had never had it all taken off with a razor, as those Marine barbers did.