[167] Cf. Plautus, Merc. II. 3. 63. Virg. Georg. I. 390, carpentes pensa puellae.
[168] Mr J. G. Frazer gives me the following interesting note:
As to the cutting off a child’s hair and weighing it against gold or silver, the facts are these.
(1) Among the Harari in Eastern Africa when a child is a few months old, its hair is cut off and weighed against silver or gold money; the money is then divided among the female relations of the mother.
Paulitschke, Beiträge zur Ethnographie und Anthropologie der Somâl, Galla und Hararî (Leipzig, 1886), p. 70.
(2) Mohammed’s daughter Fâtima gave in alms the weight of her child’s hair in silver.
W. Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in early Arabia, p. 153.
(3) Among the Mohammedans of the Punjaub a boy’s hair is shaved off on the 7th or 3rd day after birth, or sometimes immediately after birth. Rich people give alms of silver coins equal in weight to the hair.
Punjab Notes and Queries, I., No. 66.
(4) When the Hindus of Bombay dedicate a child to any god or purpose, they shave its head and weigh the hair against gold or silver.