Music
Osheaga bans headdresses
by Jeremy Mersereau
July 14, 2015
Headdresses worn to the festival will be confiscated.
Montreal’s Osheaga music festival lineup this year is a doozy: Kendrick Lamar, Hudson Mohawke, Weezer… and best of all, absolutely no dorks in First Nations headdresses.
According to a post on the Osheaga 2015 Facebook page, the festival is asking fans and artists to “not use this symbol as a fashion accessory,” due to its “spiritual and cultural meaning in the Native communities.” The headdresses worn by your average festival attendee generally imitates the ones worn by members of the Plains Nations, which are reserved exclusively for men who have accomplished great deeds for their tribe and worked extremely hard to earn them. It absolutely shouldn’t be something worn by people with no connection or knowledge of the culture just because it looks good. Can you imagine the outcry if music fans started wearing, I don’t know, the papal triregnum to the Tame Impala show? Although, to be honest, that would look pretty baller.
It’s a bad time to be a Montreal cultural appropriator: other festivals like Heavy Montreal and ÎleSoniq have followed suit in adopting the ban, and Osheaga organizers say that any headdresses found will be confiscated, no questions asked.
Last summer, B.C,’s Bass Coast festival also banned headdresses, a decision made largely due to the festival taking place on indigenous land. We’re happy to see this trend catching on.
