Hair viewed from the point of view of cultural history

Hair is part of the human being. Since when man makes serious thoughts about his hairstyle, that can not be dated with certainty, can be pondered over it, however, excellent. Sometimes pragmatism, sometimes vanity, sometimes adornment, sometimes deterrence ... Motives to "make" oneself or others the hair are plentifully present. We illuminate the hairy topic once with a cultural-historical focus. Have fun!

A hair is a "horny thread" growing from the upper layers of the body of a mammal, which essentially consists of keratin. Keratin is a collective term for various fibrous proteins that are present in horny substances. In humans, these are limited to finger and toe nails, in addition to hair. While the hair growth in most mammals is so pronounced that we speak of fur or pelt, the body hair in humans is not less present, but rather less dense or pronounced. In fact, the entire human body is hairy. Exceptions are mucous membranes, red lips, nipples, as well as palms and soles. While "dense hair" has been preserved on the head, dense body hair is limited to regions such as the armpits, pubis, legs, and, depending on gender, chest hair and beard growth in men. The rest of the human "fur" is very much present, but usually so thin and undeveloped that it is hardly noticeable. Strictly speaking, we humans are no less hairy than our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. For evolutionary reasons, the fur of the great apes is merely denser and more pronounced than that of us humans. In contrast to other mammals, it is interesting to note that the same regions of the great apes are completely hairless as in humans, while cats and dogs, for example, have fur on and under their feet. However, this is largely due to the different anatomy. Also our fingers and backs of our hands are hairy. The example becomes clear again actually with apes, which have, like us, completely hairless palms, however, an equally overgrown hand or foot back.

In some circumstances, the phrase: "It makes my hair stand on end" is sufficiently known. This is a situation in which one actually notices the existing and often unnoticed body hair. If goose bumps form, e.g. when the temperature drops or in a moment of shock, the small thin hairs on the arms, legs, the back of the neck or other regions of the body stand up and are more "noticeable" or visible. The hairs do not stand up on their own during this process, but rather are pulled into an upright position as our skin contracts. With the right lighting, you may be surprised at how many hairs you can discover in an otherwise suspected hairless area.

How and where hair grows is a subject we all encounter in fifth grade biology classes. The hair papilla of the hair root, sebaceous gland or basement membrane will not be discussed in depth here. We all remember the cross-section of the skin with the hair root from the biology book. What remains the same is that all hair is structured in this biological form. Not only our human head and body hair, but also the fur of our furry friends in the house, yard, forest and meadow.

The human head hair grows about 1.5 centimeters per month. Since various substances of the body are deposited or settle in the hair during growth and the hair also "decays" much more slowly, hair growth sometimes provides valuable information in the scientific fields of forensic anthropology and forensic medicine.

In 1921, farmers in Egtved, Denmark, noticed a chicken grave in which archaeologists later discovered the remains of a young woman buried around 1400 BC, the older Nordic Bronze Age. In this grave, pieces of clothing made of sheep's wool (hair) were very well preserved, which raised some puzzles in the Copenhagen restoration workshop, as the clothing seemed unusual for the region. Of the corpse itself, only a few soft parts were preserved, teeth and head hair shaved short on the sides and half-long in the back.

The young woman's clothing, which was atypical for Scandinavia, led anthropologists at the Danish National Museum to have the hair examined by analyzing the strontium isotope signatures of the hair. Based on this analysis, the anthropologists were able to determine that the woman buried and found in Egtved, Denmark, must have arrived in Denmark shortly before her death, that she originally came from the Black Forest area, and that she had traveled some 3,000 kilometers through Bronze Age northern Europe in the 2 years prior to her death. All this could be determined and proved beyond doubt with the girl from Egtved on the basis of signatures in her hair. The same methods are also used by forensic medicine to determine the place of origin of unknown corpses. In conjunction with the hair growth, it is thus possible to determine not only the origin, but even possible temporal "movement profiles". At least if the unknown dead person has traveled longer distances in the months or years before his death and has not had his hair cut on the way.

While the hair of the girl from Egtved documents a young girl of the Bronze Age with unexpected wanderlust, one found in a bog near Osterby, Schleswig-Holstein the skull, of a man who died about 2000 years ago, with an impressive hairstyle. Preserved almost undamaged is an elaborately braided side knot of hair, which proves that "hairstyles" were not unknown to our ancestors. This skull of the man from Osterby is currently on display for the public in the Landesmuseum Schleswig-Holstein, Schloss Gottorf in Schleswig.

The knowledge of ancient hair costumes is not new. From the natives of North and South America, the Romans, Greeks, Cossacks we know that hair costumes in ancient times very often gave information about status or tribal affiliation. Traditions that now and then even revive. In the 1980s, the youth movement of the "punks" discovered the haircut of the North American tribe of the Iroquois for themselves and made it "modern" again in our latitudes, to the chagrin of many parents. In any case, the history of different cultures and eras would still offer enough material and fashion to make even the parents of future generations shake their heads.

What is interesting with regard to the hair of past civilizations or ethnic groups is the fact that similar patterns can be seen in so many different geographical locations and also in different epochs. Not so much in any similar hairstyle, but rather in the often similar interpretive concepts of different hairstyles.

Whether a man was a "good warrior" could be read off from the hair on the head of a North American native, or its ornamentation, just as it could be read off from the hair of a Viking. Although both peoples lived on completely different continents and never had any significant contact or trade relations with each other.  

Among the North American natives, it is known that men also wore long hairstyles. Tribal affiliation and status within the tribal community was expressed by the hair ornaments. The classic eagle feather should be mentioned here. Different "honors" or curricula vitae could be recognized not infrequently by the coloring as well as the position of a feather. So it really made a difference whether the feather of a warrior was attached to the back of the head straight up or in an angled position. Such "signs" could tell if, for example, a warrior already had combat experience, if he had already killed enemies, or even if he himself had already been injured. Most likely, these feather signs could be compared with rank insignia and medals of a modern army.

Scalping was not an invention of the Native Americans!

When talking about hair and North American natives, the stories of Karl May might come to mind, in which "brave warriors" took the scalp of their enemies to humiliate them in the afterlife. Although Mr. May spent most of his life in jail and has never been to the "Wild West" himself, it is true that the bad habit of scalping existed. However, this kind of mutilation or torture was not invented by the Native Americans, but by the French who, as an occupying power, fought with the English in North America for a while. Already settled settlers put murder bounties on Native Americans to keep their homes and farms safe. French soldiers went out to kill Native Americans, and to get the bounty as well, they cut off the "scalp" of those killed to take with them as proof of a kill. The tragic aspects of this bad idea are that you don't have to be dead to be scalped, and that Native people really resented this bad habit. Not so much as murder, but that the murdered person would be humiliated in the afterlife without head hair. This will be one of the reasons why the aborigines adopted this "French tradition" very quickly, in order to give even their defeated enemies a shame in the afterlife.

In scalping, the scalp is incised in a circle around a tuft of hair and this tuft of hair is then torn from the skull along with the scalp. Since one survives this painful procedure, there is no need to discuss the moral value of such torture or mutilation. As corporal punishment or chastisement, scalping is not officially applied in any country of the world today.

When you think of Vikings, you quickly think of bearded shaggy heads with a horned helmet. Except for the helmet, this assumption is also almost correct. However, it is also a fact that at least the women of the Vikings must have been gifted braiders, who also braided the hair of their men. Finds of corpses in Denmark and Sweden prove this "art" and with some of the "bog corpses" still exhibited today, one can guess that the hairstyles could not have been unattractive during their lifetime. There are various "nostalgia clubs" in Scandinavia that try to research fashion, hairstyles and clothing and then present them on the occasion of "Viking Days" or similar events. The most important of these "Viking fans" can be found annually at the Viking Days in Schleswig, which is close to the former Viking settlement of Haithabu on the Schlei River, as well as Viking meetings in the former Viking fortress of Fyrkat in northern Denmark. The impressive thing about such events is the attention to detail with which the performers present "the old days." Since the braided hairstyles of the Viking women are far too elaborate to be called "everyday" today, it should be mentioned that the so-called "cornrows" are an invention of the ladies from the ancient north. Here, tight braids are tightly braided from the front to the back of the head. This hairstyle was practical for all the Viking women who took part in hunts and also fighting in the absence of their husbands. Even today, this hairstyle is quite popular in some sports among women with longer hair. First and foremost, you won't have to look far to find female boxers or fighters of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) with such hairstyles. So, in the spirit of the Scandinavian warrior women.

While the Nordic Germanic tribes still enjoyed their splendor of hair, Roman legionaries were already sworn to short hairstyles. We know of no ancient depiction, bust or record in which a Roman legionary or even one of the Caesars had long hair. The same is true of the Greeks. Even the detailed sculptures of the master Michelangelo leave no doubt that Romans, like Greeks, did not "walk around like barbarians." Civilization was practiced here, with a recognizable attention to a "sensible" haircut. The whole thing was 2000-2500 years ago. Now someone should still claim that everything was bad in the past.

Slavs and Mongols were closer to Scandinavians with their hairstyles than to Roman legionaries, although a female braiding will have been missed in these areas. During the Ukraine crisis in 2013 and 2014, the hairstyles of the "indomitable free riding people" of the Cossacks increasingly reappeared among Ukrainian patriots, and soldiers of the Ukrainian army fighting for their land in Luhansk and Donbas also wore the "Cossack curl", mustache and shaved temples. Just like Taras Bulba and all the other Don Cossacks, who centuries before made the milk sour for the Russians and Poles with their stubborn inflexibility. The hairstyle of the new Ukrainians thus transported something like a traditional confession and the unwillingness to submit.

Incidentally, many tribes of the North American natives keep it very similar by gathering annually for pow-wows to perform traditional songs and dances. Hair styles and cultural identity thus live on ipso facto. The tradition of North American natives is certainly more tragic than the permanently rebellious behavior of the Cossacks.... but both are worth preserving. From quite different perspectives, of course.

That such elaborate hairstyles need "care" is quite undisputed. But here, too, the origin slides far into the past. In the 14th century before Christ, the Egyptian ruler Nefertiti was the first of her class to employ "hairdressers" at her court. Even today, the picture-perfect Egyptian ruler is somewhat revered for this in the "hairdresser's guild" of the Middle East, and one finds small pictures or busts of the royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten in quite a few hairdressing salons in Jordan, Israel and the Middle East.

That hair also played a role among the Egyptians is evidenced by many tomb inscriptions and wall reliefs, in which it is not uncommon to notice very airily dressed ladies wearing a kind of "bump" on their heads. These "bumps" were actually lumps of wax, interspersed with various fragrant oils, which melted in the course of a "feast" or cozy get-together and covered the ladies' hair and shoulders with a fragrant oily liquid. The rest may be imagined. However, one may agree that the ancient Egyptians knew how to have parties.

Even in our modern world, it is impossible to imagine a world without hairstyles as an indication of group affiliation. In addition to various youth groups, ethnic groups such as Cossacks or Jews still use "their hairstyle" today. With the orthodox Jews it is the "curls" and with the Cossacks the hair wave over the forehead with short shaved sides. Also different army federations maintain their "Haartrachten", whether from tradition or also only male exuberance and unreasonableness.

One may not speak of youth movements, since these at the latest since the "mushroom heads" of the Beatles always and constantly write their own history and culture, about which one should not always think. Punks, skinheads, poppers, goths, emos.... they all have their own "hairstyle", which is rarely based on good taste or haute couture, but rather on the trends of fashion or respective movement set by "idols".

Regardless of this, constantly changing "hair fashions" carry through the centuries. We think of the high plugged wigs of the time around the French revolution or also "arty" plugged hairstyles of the ladies in the Victorian time or the female short hairstyles in the 60s and 70s. In the meantime, it seems that what pleases is allowed and fashions are quickly oriented to a certain attitude towards life. Whether short or long hairstyle, cornrows or dreadlocks. In most cases, the hairstyle will adapt to the social environment of the wearer.

A similar development can be observed with other body hair. While a few decades ago "very hairy" people did not cause a big hello, our society and especially ladies are very anxious to get rid of body hair. It is shaved, waxed or even lasered to make armpit, leg or pubic hair disappear. Also for men new products come again and again on the market, which promise to make a shave still more thoroughly or still more maintaining.

In fact, it is also men who are the originators of a product line that is almost as old as hair care itself: Hair restorer products!

While women often have a hair growth that may be somewhat thinner but largely even until old age, quite a few middle-aged men suffer from "hair loss". Bald foreheads, "receding hairlines" or hairless backs of the heads have literally been driving the male sex to despair for centuries. Although this hair loss, quite similar to "age spots" on the skin, is a genetic "defect" that occurs naturally with age, many men believe they can cope with this loss with miracle cures, ointments and hair tonics. Even the beverage manufacturer Coca Cola advertised in the early years that it could "repair" hair growth. It didn't work and men continued to lose their hair. After all, in the 1980s Coca Cola managed to "strengthen" the hair of many young people in order to "comb up" weatherproof mohawks, since the drink makes the hair very sticky and firm due to the high sugar content when it dries. At the same time, the "cola glaze" can also be washed out relatively easily, so that the hair was not damaged by it. Much more harmful to the hair are the "bleaching agents" popular with the ladies to dye their hair blond, blue or pink. Here, prolonged use can actually cause damage that permanently deteriorates the structure of the hair. From "hair split" to hair loss, the range of damage is wide. In any case, however, it will not be something that a woman is really happy about. Hair that has fallen out or been pulled out with roots is gone. And they will stay gone. It may be that a new hair will grow back in the approximate position. However, larger "area damage" is usually very lasting for the general appearance, even in the long term. The length of the hair is not affected at first. Often the hair "breaks", or splits at a certain length due to its structure and this "hair split" then leads to a hairdresser cutting the hair above the breakage. For ladies who have been growing around a long hairstyle for years, such a cut can be a real tragedy. To make the hair firmer, smoother and more "stable", there are almost countless care products on the market. From dragées to shampoos, conditioners or oils. You can actually improve the hair structure with such care products. Only the much sought-after "hair growth remedy" has not existed until now. Even if the most different manufacturers in the course of the centuries claimed to have found an effective means. A functioning hair restorer was thus something like the holy grail of the hairdressing industry: impossible to find.

For the overly concerned man, the industry has once again straightened its back and invented "toupees." Toupets are, in a sense, "partial prostheses" for the hair. They don't involve putting on a complete wig, but merely a hairpiece that covers the bald spot. Very similar to "extensions" for girls who do not have the patience to let their own hair grow. There "horse hair" or similar strands are then woven into the existing main hair in such a way that the hair looks longer overall.

This small excursion into the hair fashion documents that "our desires and problems" are by no means new, but move partly across our centuries and are also completely surely still in decades a topic, which occupies humans.

Likewise, the respective current hair fashion will remain a topic. While young people place an almost existential weight on their hairstyle, this will have a far less dramatic effect on their well-being in old age. However, hairdressers will hopefully have to continue to serve happy customers of all ages in the future.

With some horror, many people around the age of 50 will come to the realization in front of a mirror that gray strands are forming. One is getting "old. The argument of the wise white-haired old man will then hardly give comfort. In fact, little can be said against the graying of hair, since it is a completely natural development. The reason for graying of hair is quite simply a lack of melanin in the hair. At the hair root there are pigment-forming cells that produce the pigment melanin, which is deposited in the horny layer of the hair shaft and thus gives the hair its color. Over the years, these cells will naturally produce less melanin and the hair will "bleach out". This process cannot be reversed or switched off. In this respect, one will have to live with the gray hair "in dignity", or try to drown out gray strands with hair dye. Since this process does not occur simultaneously in all hair roots, gray strands will almost certainly form first.

The good news is that gray overnight is not possible.

Every now and then you hear folk say that people were hit so hard by a stroke of fate that they turned gray "overnight." This is nonsense. Pigments and melanin do not dissolve into nothing just like that, and no event is going to shut down all the hair roots at the same time as driving existing pigments out of the hair. Very well, however, a few drugs would be able to accelerate such a "failure". Therefore, if one gets gray hair by taking a medication, it is advisable to consult with the attending physician.

Finally, it should be noted that any wise old woman or old magician with white hair is absolutely more credible than a youth with curly golden hair.

Hair plays a not insignificant role in many fairy tales and folk tales. If you don't believe in witchcraft, you won't have any problems handing over three of your hairs. Rapunzel would have fared badly without her head of hair. In short: hair always finds a way into fairy tales and mythology. This, too, has been the case throughout the centuries. The Brothers Grimm wrote about the devil with the three golden hairs, and Tolkien also has the dwarf Gimli ask the beautiful Elven princess Galadriel for a hair in the novel "Lord of the Rings", in order to set it in a crystal after his return. Galadriel then gives him three hairs as a gift. It is only a question of time when hair will again play a role in a novel or novella. And often it is the stories that are never written down. We ourselves own a jar, with a curl from our first daughter after her first haircut. The color is as blond today as it was on the day of the haircut 29 years ago, and the memory is just as vivid.

The gesture of the "lock of hair" is not new either. So some soldiers went into the battles of the world wars with a photo and a lock of hair of the beloved. Whether these locks of hair then did their job and brought the men back home safe and sound is another matter. What would be important is the spirit of such a gesture and whether this might not be something worth preserving. At the very least, such a lock of hair will certainly be a more personal memento than a Whatsapp message crocheted over the bed. Purely as a thought.

As early as the 1960s, the writers of the television series Starship Orion were already thinking about what the hair fashion of the future might look like. This tradition continued in the far more successful series Star Trek, Starship Enterprise, and who doesn't have the hairstyles of Spok and the Romulans in mind. Whether the future will really behave like this, no one may say, and measured against the "spirit of the times" we will certainly not have to expect visually exhausting fashions. Nevertheless, it would remain interesting to see when which fashion might be repeated. Although the perception of the society suffers there surely also something. Fact remains that hair fashion in the future, as well as in the past, will remain an integral part of the "set" of fashion and describes, along with clothing, the "face" of an era. Whether Mary Poppins or Marie Antoinette. We could all immediately assign the right hairstyle to the two women, describing the fashion of their respective times.

In addition to the question of the future of any hair fashions, one should not ignore the fact that there are hair fashions that have been creeping through time for centuries. Members of traditional costume clubs will know the "pitfalls" of such traditions kept alive, but without negatively afflicting them. In many cases, hairstyles are a quasi-fixed component of the traditional costume. In Frisian peasant costumes, for example, hoods are worn that are put over a previously pinned topknot at the back of the woman's head. The list of such "old hairstyles" is endless. From the "Indians of the Great Plains" to the Vikings in Fyrkat to the folk dance groups on the North Sea islands. They all keep their tradition alive. With the traditional costumes and also the hairstyles that go with them. At least in such "local costumes" we will always encounter the often charming hairstyles of the past. It is not obvious that a girl gang of the future will discover the Amrumer Haarknoten for itself and completely revive it. However, it is important for tradition not to let everything die out. This does not mean that our grannies will again wear topknots like the Trümmerfrauen or that our women will look like Mary Poppins on their heads when visiting a restaurant. But it does mean that at least a small group is able to remember how the Viking women braided their long hair so artfully or how to pin a hood to their hair on the North Sea islands.

Again, it is interesting to note that such "costume groups" exist in almost every corner of the world. From Spanish flamenco dancers to colorful costume groups of the Easter parades in the Philippine Manila. There, so to speak, every hairstyle sits exactly as it always has.

When talking about costumes and people who are enthusiastic about them, the ranks of "cosplayers" should not go unmentioned. These are mainly young people who, with insane effort, love and attention to detail, recreate the costumes, make-ups and hairstyles of their "favorite heroes" in order to present themselves at game or comic conventions or other happenings. Originally, this cosplay idea comes from Japan. In the meantime, the cosplay community spans the entire world, and it is impressive to see how much heart and soul the cosplayers put into recreating a computer game character or a comic book character. As with historical costume groups, the "correct hairstyle" is an important part of the overall costume in cosplay.

The hair belongs "to it" ... so it was and so it will remain. At some point, all of our hair will turn gray. That is the course of time. And all of us like Gandalf the Grey better as a gray-haired old man than if the most famous magician in the world, next to Harry Potter, were a blond youth.