Dread-locked! : Hair and Identity
Have you read Zitkala-Sa’s account of the cutting of her long hair? As a Native American, she was raised to believe that her long, thick hair, braided, was a sign of the strength of spirit that she shared with her tribe. According to her folks, short hair was donned only by cowards, mourners, and those who had surrendered to the enemy upon losing battles. The belief hindered her from adapting to a different way of wearing her hair and when forced by the missionaries to cut it off, she struggled to come to terms with a self that was spirited and brave, despite wearing shorter hair. She described the feeling as being similar to a ‘wooden puppet’ being tossed around in the air, as she relinquished the sense of an internal locus of control over her own life.
This isn’t the only instance of hair being tied close to a person’s identity, and a woman’s identity in particular. In fact, about a year and a half before, I found myself looking into the mirror and feeling quite unlike me. My hair was flowing and tickling my nose, and seemed like it was demanding my attention. I, however, felt carefree and low-maintenance. A few days earlier,
I had watched Coco Avant Chanel, in which Coco cuts her hair and proclaims to her friend — “Une femme qui se coupe les cheveux est une femme qui s’apprête à changer de vie” (A woman who cuts her hair is a woman who is going to change her life). In this case, shorter hair seemed to free more time to devote to activities more pressing, and indicates a shift from being a woman who cares about her appearance to a woman who would rather focus lesser on maintaining it, and more on her work instead. That year, I wore my hair in a boy cut and travelled most of the year- by the beach, in the city, amidst the Himalayan mountains, my hair was the least of my concerns. Many African women, whose textured, kinky hair is hereditary, often take to wearing weaves to be able to maintain their locks on a daily basis amidst a hurried life and full schedules that have come to be in our modern lifestyles.
In India, traditionally speaking, women would rarely cut their hair. I have noticed this among South Indian women in particular. Oiled with coconut fats, and tied into fat plaits or thick buns every day, these women’s hair are well-known for their health, so much so that the ‘hair-donations’ to the Tirupati Temple are then sold for huge sums of money to wig-makers who cater to the Euro-centric fashion industry, thereby making it one of the wealthiest religious establishments in the world. South Indian women are known to take great care of their glorious mops of mane, the combing of which by their mothers or sisters is a daily ritual on the front porch. Often, they will adorn it with fresh jasmines strung together for its zesty scent. My grandmother, who was known among family and friends for her graceful looks and sharp sense of style, would often do so before setting out for her daily evening stroll with friends or with my grandfather. Her routine stopped only when the first round of intense chemotherapy made all her hair fall, and she took to wearing a scarf to cover her scalp. I remember the winter I visited her after this, she was depressed and kept to herself a lot more than we knew her to be comfortable with. She refused to go for walks or visit cousins.
In fact, losing their hair to chemotherapy becomes an existential confrontation to several female cancer patients. When Melissa Etheridge performed at an awards show, bald from her dose of therapy, it inspired India Arie to juxtapose the perception of beauty with the pain of disease, and remark at the display of strength in her hit song — ‘I’m not my hair’.
I have personally had a long and strenuous relationship with my hair. Curly (3A, if you are wondering) and thick, I have always refused to straighten it, and it has become something I am known for among my friends, especially those from school. There have been times during school when I would have a painful attack of lice and I would sometimes resort to washing my scalp with scalding hot water and combing it hard with close-toothed combs. There was this one time in Mumbai, where I was working as a financial consultant and studying over the weekends while living alone, when I could not manage to wash and tend to my hair properly for an entire week. I decided to head to a neighboring salon and cut it off, where I lied that my hair was mangled because of a recent safari through the local national park. Rife with split ends, and lifeless-looking, it was embarrassing. Since my mother doesn’t
have curly hair, she couldn’t help me much when it came to tending to it. It is only over the past year, and I’m now 23 years old, that I have managed to figure out a routine for hair care. It has paralleled my development of a self-identity, and naturally so, given how closely a woman’s personality and communal identity are closely intertwined with her hair. I see this as a milestone of coming into my own.
