Hair and the Life Cycle in Africa

            If the body were a canvas upon which culture, beliefs, and status are painted, then the head would be the most detailed and important part of the painting.  In nearly all Africa’s cultures and many other cultures throughout the world, the head is given a different kind of respect than the rest of the body.  The significance of hair in general and treatment of hair specifically can be seen in these objects from the “Africa Embodied” exhibit: the Yoruba Ibeji figure, the Akan sculpture, and the hair of Aoulaba factory print.  Various African cultures have traditions involving hair to provide spiritual protection, to comfort in mourning, to express social status, and to mark initiation.

        In Yorubaland hairstyles are a form of communication.  Different hairstyles express everything from religious beliefs to jobs.  The Ibeji figure is a woman depicted wearing a traditional hairstyle known as Agogo.  The high crest running from the forehead to the nape of the neck marks this distinctive style.  The style is indeed distinctive and serves as identification of the wearer as married.  This physically separated the married women from the unmarried women who wore braided, wrapped, or other styles.

        The treatment of hair is often done for purposes of protection from evil spirits or for good luck.  One particularly vulnerable time is at birth.  Probably because of high infant mortality rate in Yorubaland and the cultural importance of the head as a link to the gods there are a numbers of practices that involve the treatment of the infant’s head.  Seven or nine days after birth the child is welcomed into the world by a naming ceremony.  In addition to being given a name, the child’s head is ritually shaved.  The shaving of hair is said to “mark the separation of the child from its former status as a visitor from the spiritual world”(Houlberg 368).  The hair is often saved for later use in amulets or medicinal concoctions.  There are some Yoruba children who do not have their head shorn.  One of these groups, called Dada, is separated from the others because they were born with a full head of hair.  Because their hair is likened to cowries, literally gifts of money from the Orisa (gods), they are considered sacred.  In turn, their heads are not shaved at the naming ceremony, and their hair is allowed to grow into uncombed, uncut, washed locks.  In the Sande society there is a practice of braiding items into the hair for protection.  Traditionally, horns of antelope, goat, sheep, and even cows were hollowed out, filled with medicinal herbs, and braided into the hair.  In more recent times, with the influx of Islam into the area amulets containing scriptures from the Koran, called lasimoisia, have replaced animal horns.

           

        Birth is entrance into a world that is known; death is birth into an unknown world.    In Yorubaland the ritual shaving of the head of the deceased marks death.  As previously stated the Yoruba shave the head at birth to mark the crossing of the separation between the spirit world and world of the living, hence the head is shaved at death to mark the same return across that boundary.  Yet among other cultures it is not the head of the deceased that is shorn but the heads of the mourners.

         In the Akan of Ghana both sexes of the closest relations of the deceased shave their heads and bodies as an offering of respect for the dead.  Among the Asante there is some of evidence of a practice involving the deceased’s hair after the body has been buried.  The deceased’s blood relations shave their heads and deposit the hair into a pot.  The lid of the pot is often made to look like the deceased.  In addition to the hair, cooking utensils and food are brought with the pot.  Then the family carries the pot and food to a special area of the burial grounds that is separate.  Finally the family places the pot on the ground and recites a final blessing bringing the funeral rites to a close. 

           

        Hair is also indicative of one’s social status.  Except in cases like the Dada or Asante priests, hair that is left untended is regarded as indication that one is mad or otherwise unsocialized.  Among women in Yorubaland various hairstyles communicate various ideals.  One hairstyle that is thought to be sexually alluring is the Olowu.  Others like the Agogo demarcate the wearer as married.  Traditionally the court messenger wore A distinctive hairstyle of the court messenger, an oval shaped patch of hair on the back of his head and the rest shaved, was a clear indication to the people of his occupation.

            In initiation rites hair often plays a central role.  In Yoruba initiation, as in birth, when the head is shaved initiation can be thought of as a rebirth; the initiate is now an adult.  In the Temne male initiation ceremony, known as the Rabai de Temne, the first thing that happens to the initiates after they are “abducted” is to have their heads shaved bald and washed.  This is to protect against uncleanness a symptom of the practice of witchcraft.  Amongst the Akan people there are certain hairstyles that a girl wears after she has been initiated to designate her as such.  One of these hairstyles is represented on the Akan sculpture.  The precursor to the girls’ initiation ceremony into the Sande society in southern Sierra Leone and western Liberia is the practice of publicly combing and plaiting of the initiates’ hair.  As soon as the initiates arrive at their initiation camp in the bush their hair is shorn.  Their time in the camp allows for the hair to grow back.  The elaborate plaited styles of the adult women both stand as attractive coiffure and symbolize the transformation of the initiate.

        The change of hairstyles in the last half of century is the result of the departure from traditional ideals of beauty to western ideals.  The factory cloth print “The Hair of Aoulaba” was created in response to this phenomenon.  The hairstyles on the fabric are all traditional woman’s styles.  The wife of the president of the Ivory Coast had this cloth created to remind the women of the importance of traditional ways.  Specifically it was in response to the Miss Ivory Coast beauty pageant, which emphasized western values of being thin.  Aoulaba was a pageant that valued the full-bodied traditional appearance of the contestants.

                  In conclusion, treatment of the hair and head continues from birth to death.  The changes that come throughout one’s life are reflected in the changes of the hairstyles.  As African ideals of beauty have become westernized, traditional hairstyles are a way Africans retain and express pride for their past.   When the question arises about why Africans take their hair so seriously, the answer is simply that they take their life and death seriously.     

           

Bibliography

Arnoldi, Mary Jo and Christine Mullen Kreamer. 1995, Crowning Achievements Africans Art of         Dressing the Head. L.A.: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History.

Houlberg, Marilyn. 1979, “Social Hair: Yoruba Hairstyles in Southwestern Nigeria.” in The         Anthropology of Clothing and  Adornment.  Justine M. Cordwell and Ronald A. Schwarz eds. The         Hague Mouton Publishers.  P. 349-397

Sieber, Roy and Frank Herreman. 2000, Hair in African Art and Culture.  Munich: Prestel.