Plutarch[94] states that it was the custom at coming of age to tonsure the head and offer the hair to some god, and describes the young Theseus as adopting what we know as the Celtic tonsure, thenceforth called after his name.
“The custom still being in existence at that time for those quitting childhood to go to Delphi and dedicate[95] their hair to the god, Theseus also went to Delphi (and the place is still called after him the Theseia, so they say) and shaved the hair of his head in front only (ἐκείρατο τὰ πρόσθεν μόνον) Homer says the Abantes do:[96] and this kind of tonsure (κουρά) is called ‘Theseis’ because of him. Now the Abantes first shaved themselves in this manner, not in imitation of the Arabs[97] as some have it, nor even in emulation of the Mysians, but being a warlike people and fighting hand to hand, ... as Archilochos testifies. For this reason Alexander is said to have ordered his Macedonians to shave their beards....”
This cutting the hair as token of dedication to any particular object or deity was of common occurrence. Achilles' hair was dedicated as an offering to the river Spercheios in case of his safe return.[98] Knowing that this is impossible, in his grief at the death of Patroklos, with apologies to the god he cuts his [pg 040] flowing locks and lays them in the hand of his dead friend.
Pausanias declares that it was the custom with all the Greeks to dedicate their hair to rivers.[99]
Theophrastus[100] mentions as a characteristic of the man of Petty Ambition that he will “take his son away to Delphi to have his hair cut (ἀποκεῖραι),” showing that this venerable custom had by that time become pedantic and an object of ridicule.
According to Athenaeus,[101] when the young men cut their hair they brought a large cup of wine to Herakles and, pouring a libation, offered it to the assembled people to drink.
The age at which the hair was cut seems to have varied. The Ordinances of Manu[102] give the following instructions:—
“The Keçanta (tonsure-rite) is ordered in the sixteenth year[103] of a Brahman, in the twenty-second of a Ksatriya, and in two years more after that for a Vaiçya.”
But whenever the actual tonsure was performed, it seems to have been a very widely spread custom, symbolical in some way of devotion to a deity or kindred, or to some particular course of life.
Its importance in this place, however, lies in its being one of the special acts relating to the admission to tribal status, and to the devotion, so to speak, of the services of the individual to the corporate needs of his tribe or kindred.