9. Beliefs about hair
Numerous customs appear to indicate that the hair was regarded as the special seat of bodily strength. The Rājpūt warriors formerly wore their hair long and never cut it, but trained it in locks over their shoulders. Similarly the Marātha soldiers wore their hair long. The Hatkars, a class of Marātha spearmen, might never cut their hair while engaged on military service. A Sikh writer states of Guru Govind, the founder of the militant Sikh confederacy: “He appeared as the tenth Avatār (incarnation of Vishnu). He established the Khālsa, his own sect, and by exhibiting singular energy, leaving the hair on his head, and seizing the scimitar, he smote every wicked person.”[11] As is well known, no Sikh may cut his hair, and one of the five marks of the Sikh is the kanga or comb, which he must always carry in order to keep his hair in proper order. A proverb states that ‘The origin of a Sikh is in his hair.’[12] The following story, related by Sir J. Malcolm, shows the vital importance attached by the Sikh to his hair and beard: “Three inferior agents of Sikh chiefs were one day in my tent. I was laughing and joking with one of them, a Khālsa Sikh, who said he had been ordered to attend me to Calcutta. Among other subjects of our mirth I rallied him on trusting himself so much in my power. ‘Why, what is the worst,’ he said, ‘that you can do to me?’ I passed my hand across my chin, imitating the act of shaving. The man’s face was in an instant distorted with rage and his sword half-drawn. ‘You are ignorant,’ he said to me, ‘of the offence you have given; I cannot strike you who are above me, and the friend of my master and the state; but no power,’ he added, indicating the Khālsa Sikhs, ‘shall save these fellows who dared to smile at your action.’ It was with the greatest difficulty and only by the good offices of some Sikh Chiefs that I was able to pacify his wounded honour.”[13] These instances appear to show clearly that the Sikhs considered their hair of vital importance; and as fighting was their object in life, it seems most probable that they thought their strength in war was bound up in it. Similarly when the ancient Spartans were on a military expedition purple garments were worn and their hair was carefully decked with wreaths, a thing which was never done at home.[14] And when Leonidas and his three hundred were holding the pass of Thermopylae, and Xerxes sent scouts to ascertain what the Greeks were doing in their camp, the report was that some of them were engaged in gymnastics and warlike exercises, while others were merely sitting and combing their long hair. If the hypothesis already suggested is correct, the Spartan youths so engaged were perhaps not merely adorning themselves for death, but, as they thought, obtaining their full strength for battle. “The custom of keeping the hair unshorn during a dangerous expedition appears to have been observed, at least occasionally, by the Romans. Achilles kept unshorn his yellow hair, because his father had vowed to offer it to the river Sperchius if ever his son came home from the wars beyond the sea.”[15]
When the Bhīls turned out to fight they let down their long hair prior to beginning the conflict with their bows and arrows.[16] The pirates of Surat, before boarding a ship, drank bhāng and hemp-liquor, and when they wore their long hair loose they gave no quarter.[17] The Mundas appear to have formerly worn their hair long and some still do. Those who are converted to Christianity must cut their hair, but a non-Christian Munda must always keep the chundi or pigtail. If the chundi is very long it is sometimes tied up in a knot.[18] Similarly the Oraons wore their hair long like women, gathered in a knot behind, with a wooden or iron comb in it. Those who are Christians can be recognised by the fact that they have cut off their pigtails. A man of the low Pārdhi caste of hunters must never have his hair touched by a razor after he has once killed a deer. As already seen, every orthodox Hindu wore till recently a choti or scalp-lock, which should theoretically be as long as a cow’s tail. Perhaps the idea was that for those who were not warriors it was sufficient to retain this and have the rest of the head shaved. The choti was never shaved off in mourning for any one but a father. The lower castes of Muhammadans, if they have lost several children, will allow the scalp-lock to grow on the heads of those subsequently born, dedicating it to one of their Muhammadan saints. The Kanjars relate of their heroic ancestor Māna that after he had plunged a bow so deeply into the ground that no one could withdraw it, he was set by the Emperor of Delhi to wrestle against the two most famous Imperial wrestlers. These could not overcome him fairly, so they made a stratagem, and while one provoked him in front the other secretly took hold of his choti behind. When Māna started forward his choti was thus left in the wrestler’s hands, and though he conquered the other wrestler, showing him the sky as it is said, the loss of his choti deprived him for ever after of his virtue as a Hindu and in no small degree of his renown as an ancestor.[19] Thus it seems clear that a special virtue attaches to the choti. Before every warlike expedition the people of Minahassa in Celebes used to take the locks of hair of a slain foe and dabble them in boiling water to extract the courage; this infusion of bravery was then drunk by the warriors.[20] In a modern Greek folk-tale a man’s strength lies in three golden hairs on his head. When his mother plucks them out, he grows weak and timid and is slain by his enemies.[21] The Red Indian custom of taking the scalp, of a slain enemy and sometimes wearing the scalps at the waist-belt may be due to the same relief.
Hindu men showing the choti or scalp-lock
In Ceram the hair might not be cut because it was the seat of a man’s strength; and the Gaboon negroes for the same reason would not allow any of their hair to pass into the possession of a stranger.[22]