Know Your Shit...

The history of the Mohawk is said to go back to the time of pre-colonised America and the Mohawk tribes, though it is uncertain if they were the first people to sport the hair-cut. We are pretty sure, though, that they'd pull the hair on the sides out piece-by-piece and stand up the strip in the middle with some variety of plant-sap. It was a style of hair that white settlers associated with warriors which possibly helped it earn its place in modern society as a trademark of the super-rebellious anti-society punks and deathrockers. [Note: This info adapted from The Doctor Martens Book by the Doc Marten Company and Issue #1 of Swag Magazine. If you have more accurate information on the early history of the Mohawk haircut, please feel free to submit your info to mohawkfaq@necrophiliacs.net. You will be given credit on the site for your contribution.]

The first notice of Mohawks on white people came in the late 1970s, in the UK, when the punk scene was first getting mass-media attention with bands like Sex Pistols, X-Ray Specs, Generation-X, the Clash and so forth. Punks preferred shaving the sides of their heads over ripping the hair out piece-by-piece (less painful, grows back faster) and standing the hair up with an assortment of mouses, sprays and gels over plant-sap (washes out easier). Punks also took to dying their hair in an assortment of vibrant colours not found in nature (and we'll explain how to do that without frying your hair on this site).

In the very late 1970s through to the mid 1980s, a vast assortment of Mohawk variations had been photographed including bi-hawks (two stripes of hair), tri-hawks (three stripes of hair), half-hawks (one side buzzed), Bat-hawks or "Slut-hawks" (much wider stripe of hair, made popular by Johnny Slut of the band Specimen, house-band and owners of the London club, The Batcave) and so on.

Riot Whxre also wanted me to add this:

Taxi Driver was the first movie that featured anybody with a mohawk. Robert DeNiro, who played Travis Bickle , had one in the movie [note: it wasn't a real Mohawk, though, it was a wig] and it really brought the Mohawk to the attention of Twentiethth century masses. The popularity of Mohawks really exploded after that movie came out.