Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
I wouldn't go so far as to call these things theories. Anecdotes, maybe. Historical evidence of faith and how it affects culture, sure. But theories? Nope.
Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
If one is scientific, hair is dead epidermis. I'm sure we love it though, for its many mysterious properties, as well as looking hot.
Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
Maybe. I hate it when people say "hair is dead". Mine is growing and thus living; it most certainly is NOT dead.
Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
The first link is to a Sikh website- the men have a religious injunction against cutting their hair, ever. So I think it's perfectly natural for them to attribute certain religious qualities to their hair when it is a spiritual discipline for them. (from my Anth of Religion class, Sikhism started as a blend of Hindu and Muslim ideology and eventually became its' own religion, and I believe one of the markers of the faith was having a special comb, called a Kanga)
The second one was kinda New-Agey for me, and I tend to get worried about anyone who draws such broad conclusions, esp. for groups like the Picts or Neanderthals about whom we have fairly little information. Plus, anything that says "Native Americans" kinda freaks me out, since my Native Cultures class where we talked about how specific clans were the "longhairs" and others were not, and often specific people like married women would cut their hair or wear it a special way. Native Americans are not a group that can be described in such universal terms, so I find myself wondering what else the article gets wrong.
Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Jing
I remember a thread about how native American trackers lost their amazing tracking abilities after getting military hair cuts. Someone called urban legend on that one. It's a very interesting topic, regardless of the science of hair. Hair and the traditions surrounding it certainly have a strong (often unconscious) psychological influence on people, if nothing else. Same thing with clothing, mind. The question is whether spiritual/intuitive people grow their hair long (because of long-standing associations between long hair and closeness to nature/the spiritual), or whether long hair indeed makes you more in tune with things. Or, you know, whether long hair is even more common among intuitive/spiritual people. :p
I suspect that long hair is more common amoungst intuitive/spiritual people because they have a greater tendency to see below the surface, therefore spent less time 'individualising' the surface. Society teaches us (with varying degreess of success) to look to the superficial details. For those who do, they spend a lot of time tending to and honing those details.
Unicorn
Re: Has anyone heard of this hair theory? I thought it was interesting
I was looking at an article which gave me the idea for posting this, but I can't seem to find it :( a man named Yogi Bhajan (or something like that) went into depth about hair, what it does, and how it effects a person.