Steven Spielberg's TV Show Prompts Lawsuit 3/19/06

Producers of Steven Spielberg's US TV series Into the West are being sued by a Mescalero Apache family in southern New Mexico, who claim a stylist violated tribal customs by cutting an eight-year-old girl's hair.

The girl's father Danny Ponce filed the lawsuit against Turner Films and the unnamed stylist at Albuquerque's US District Court on 6 March (06). The papers seek $250,000 for emotional distress and a further $75,000 in damages.

Ponce alleges the company cut his daughter's hair to make her look like a boy, because their casting department had failed to find enough young male actors. Mescalero families traditionally grow their daughters' hair so it is waist-length for their sacred Coming of Age ceremony.

Ponce says, "It's part of our culture not to cut a girl's hair until her Coming of Age ceremony.

"The only ones allowed to do that are the parents. Nobody asked for permission. This has to do with the culture of a tribal member.

"It was cut very short above her ears. She looked like a boy.

"Just because you're wealthy, you don't do something without checking first."