[Left: Unidentified Omaha woman; Right: Tattooing - mark of honor]
odd: label: Local Numbers
content: BAE GN.4048 B3 A
culture: label: Culture
content: Omaha
label: Culture
content: Indians of North America -- Great Plains
setName: label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives
label: See more items in
content: Bureau of American Ethnology negatives / Additional Materials / Photographer not recorded
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Glass negative
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: National Anthropological Archives
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Glass negatives
label: Type
content: Photographs
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: When a man attained membership in the honorary Honhewachi secret society, he had the right to tattoo on a maid certain cosmic symbols of night and day. The symbol tattooed on the girl was designated as xthexe, an untranslatable name meaning a mark of honor or of distinction. The symbol on her forehead represented the sun; the outline of a four pointed star was marked on her chest symbolic of the night and the four points representing the life-giving winds. See BAE 27th Annual Report, Figure 105.