The origins of the Mohawk lie with traditional styles worn by North American Indian males on the eastern part of the continent. They were revived in the 1950s in the US in very short variations of the almost-shaven crew cut and then big time in the late 70s by UK punks, who took them to knew heights. I first saw one for real in about 1979 on a punk in Dallas. By the mid-80s, you saw them more widely, even in Texas where I lived, and I had both male and female friends with them. One female friend about 1986 had a purple one. The salon adaptations of them from the late 90s/2000s, sometimes called "faux hawks" are nice-looking but nothing like the stiff, picket-fence mohawks of the late 70s and 80s.

I thought mohawks were GROSS!