Via wdwnt.com
A Facebook user shared in the Disney Campers group that a drill team known as the “Indianettes” was not allowed to wear the headdresses included in their uniform when performing at Magic Kingdom.
Terry and Pernell Spillers posted, “What is Disney doing not allowing a high school drill team, the Indianettes not wear a part of their uniform in the parades… Indians from years past have always worn headdresses. How is this offensive????”
Above is an example of one of the headdresses the dancers in the drill team — which is from Port Neches-Groves High School in Texas — wear, via Beaumont Enterprise.
Spillers indicated that members of the Indians Marching Band had worn headdresses at Disney Parks in the past, but that they were now barred from wearing them.
Headdresses, or war bonnets, are traditionally worn by Native American chiefs and warriors. It is generally considered offensive when anyone who hasn’t earned the honor of the war bonnet wears them.
Simon Moya-Smith, a journalist and citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, told MTV in 2014, “The headdress is reserved for our revered elders who, through their selflessness and leadership, have earned the right to wear one. It’s a spiritual garb, not just cultural; it’s not merely an addition to one’s attire. Wearing one, even an imitation headdress, belittles what our elders have spent a lifetime to earn.”