Okay so, I believe that SandWings are a very ritualistic tribes, what with certain bonfire festivals, tribal war marches, and dances for various milestone-specific occasions (i.e. mating, dueling, mourning, funerals, new hatchings). Basically, SandWings have a dance and a festival for everything.

One of the most notable tribal rituals is the 'coming of age' of a dragonet. I believe, with the exceptions of royalty, SandWing mothers don't live but a few years after their young is born.

A SandWing is considered 'of age' when their mother dies. When that happens, the young and their living siblings must alone take their mother's corpse far into the wilderness, to mourn for seven days, and cremate her.

When that is done, they return to their village. Lone children with no brothers or sisters wear the skull of their mother as a mask over their own face, with paint marking every scar on the mother's face in red, and other black markings of the child's own design. If the dragonet has siblings, the oldest wear the mask back to their home.

The next night, a mourning bonfire is held in honor of the dead mother. This is when, after seven days, the dragonet wearing the skull-mask has it taken off. Sometimes, fathers or family of the dragonets will give them bodily mementos of this day (sometimes scarred on the face, or given jewelry worn on the face, what have you, but it is optional.) Then, they are considered 'of age' and are now seen as an adult SandWing.

If the oldest dragonet has siblings, the mother's skull is broken into a enough fragments for every dragonet, and they wear the bone pieces as a necklace until it decomposes and fades away.

These are a few SandWing dragonets wearing their skull charms. As you can see. Only children wear the mask, while those with siblings instead paint their faces. Black and red for males mostly, and blue and red for females.