18. Reasons why the hair was considered the source of strength
The above evidence appears to indicate that the belief of a man’s strength and vigour being contained in his hair is by no means confined to the legend of Samson, but is spread all over the world. This has been pointed out by Professor Robertson Smith,[43] Professor Wilken and others. Sir J.G. Frazer also adduces several instances in the Golden Bough to show that the life or soul was believed to be contained in the hair. This may well have been the case, but the hair was also specialised, so to speak, as the seat of bodily vigour and strength. The same idea appears to have applied in a minor measure to the nails and teeth. The rules for disposing of the cut hair usually apply to the parings of nails, and the first teeth are also deposited in a rat’s hole or on the roof of the house. As suggested by Professor Robertson Smith it seems likely that the strength and vigour of the body was believed to be located in the hair, and also to a less extent in the nails and teeth, because they grew more visibly and quickly than the body and continued to do so after it had attained to maturity. The hair and nails continue to grow all through life, and though the teeth do not grow when fully formed, the second teeth appear when the body is considerably developed and the wisdom teeth after it is fully developed. The hair grows much more palpably and vigorously than the nails and teeth, and hence might be considered especially the source of strength. Other considerations which might confirm the idea are that men have more hair on their bodies than women, and strongly built men often have a large quantity of hair. Some of the stronger wild animals have long hair, as the lion, bear and wild boar; and the horse, often considered the embodiment of strength, has a long mane. And when anger is excited the hair sometimes appears to rise, as it were, from the skin. The nails and teeth were formerly used on occasion as weapons of offence, and hence might be considered to contain part of the strength and vigour of the body.
Finally, it may be suggested as a possibility that the Roundheads cut their hair short as a protest against the superstition that a soldier’s hair must be long, which originated in the idea that strength is located in the hair and may have still been current in their time. We know that the Puritans strove vainly against the veneration of the Maypole as the spirit of the new vegetation,[44] and against the old nature-rites observed at Christmas, the veneration of fire as the preserver of life against cold, and the veneration of the evergreen plants, the fir tree, the holly, and the mistletoe, which retained their foliage through the long night of the northern winter, and were thus a pledge to man of the return of warmth and the renewal of vegetation in the spring. And it therefore seems not altogether improbable that the Puritans may have similarly contended against the superstition as to the wearing of long hair.
[1] This article is compiled from papers by Mr. Chatterji, retired E.A.C., Jubbulpore; Professor Sadāshiva Jairām, M.A., Hislop College, Nagpur; and Mr. C. Shrinivas Naidu, First Assistant Master, Sironcha, Chānda; and from the Central Provinces District Gazetteers.
[2] Mr. Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Nai.
[3] Tribes and Castes, art. Nai, para. 5.
[4] The following account is largely taken from Mr. Nesfield’s Brief View of the Caste System, pp. 42, 43.
[5] Eighteenth Century Middle-Class Life, by C.S. Torres, in the Nineteenth Century and After, Sept. 1910.
[6] Private Life of an Eastern King, p. 17.
[7] Ibidem, p. 107.
[8] Private Life of an Eastern King, p. 330.
[9] In the Bālāghāt District Gazetteer.
[10] D.B. Pandiān, Indian Village Life, under Barber.
[11] Quoted in Malcolm’s Sketch of the Sikhs, Asiatic Researches, vol. xi., 1810, p. 289.
[12] Quoted in Sir D. Ibbetson’s account of the Sikhs in Punjab Census Report (1881).
[13] Sketch of the Sikhs, ibidem, pp. 284, 285.
[14] Professor Blümners, Home Life of the Ancient Greeks, translation, p. 455.
[15] Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. iii. p. 370.
[16] Hendley, Account of the Bhīls, J.A.S.B. vol. xxxiv., 1875, p. 360.
[17] Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarāt, p. 528.
[18] S.C. Roy, The Mundas and their Country, p. 369.
[19] W. Kirkpatrick in J.A.S.B., July 1911, p. 438.
[20] Golden Bough, 3rd ed. vol. viii. p. 153.
[21] G.B., 3rd ed., Balder the Beautiful, vol. ii. p. 103.
[22] Dr. Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, p. 45.
[23] Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 234.
[24] Ibidem, vol. i. p. 242.
[25] Ibidem, vol. i. pp. 368, 369.
[26] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 270.
[27] Bombay Gazetteer, Parsis of Gujarāt, p. 226.
[28] Religion of the Semites, note i. pp. 483, 484.
[29] Bombay Gazetteer, Muhammadans of Gujarāt, p. 52.
[30] Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 368.
[31] Yule’s ed. i. 50, quoted in Bombay Gazetteer, Hindus of Gujarāt, p. 470.
[32] Mr. V.A. Smith, Early History of India, 2nd ed. p. 128.
[33] Religion of the Semites, p. 33.
[34] Lev. xiv. 9 and Deut. xxi. 12.
[35] Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 371.
[36] Ibidem, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 370.
[37] Ibidem, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 371.
[38] Mr. Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Sarwaria.
[39] Occult Review, October 1909.
[40] Orpheus, p. 99, and Bombay Gazetteer, Pārsis of Gujarāt; p. 220.
[41] Hanumān is worshipped on this day in order to counteract the evil influence of the planet Saturn, whose day it really is.
[42] Pots in which wheat-stalks are sown and tended for nine days, corresponding to the Gardens of Adonis.
[43] Religion of the Semites p. 324.
[44] Golden Bough, 2nd ed. vol. i. p. 203.