Roaches

[powwowbum49]

I'll have to see if I can find the old pics from the 60's of dancers up north that had roaches with at least 10" guard hair.

If you ever been around crow country ... dang all those guys wear some big roaches and have forever it seems.

As a roach maker I can tell you Fat Albert is right about having to save guard hair to get enough of the big stuff to make monsters. You gotta go through lots of hair to get enough. An average pound of hair if placed all together would be a bunch about 9-10" in diameter and out of that 10" diameter bunch only about a pencil worth will be longer than 9 1/2" in length.

[Tahbuhkina]

Probably the same reason hair got so big in the 80s....god I miss those metal girls.

[CHEROSAGE]

I think some of it has to do with stylin' BUT much of it has to do with looking GOOOOOOD at the Contest. I have a Turkey beard roach, a 15" roach, and a 24" roach along with my Turbin. Just a way to mix things up.

[powwowbum49]

these are some nice big ones...still lookin for the one I am think of though

[Historian]

Even in the buffalo days, hair roaches could be pretty sizable, as seen in this painting of two Sac & Fox men made by Karl Bodmer in 1833.



However, within the last 30 years, I think larger roaches in the Southern Straight Dance style, have been influenced from Northern Traditional Dancers, like Derwin Velarde (Jicarilla Apache), photographed by Ben Marra in 1996.