A woman's hair is more than just strands growing from her head. It is a powerful part of her identity that reflects her personality, culture, emotions, and what influences her entire being.
In Samoa, scrolling back to the times before the missionaries Christianized the islands, the rules for young women’s hairdos and hairdressing reflected their lives and sexual behavior. How a woman wore her hair signified a moral code within the community. Wearing hair loose symbolized social freedom, while bound hair showed restriction.
Jeanette Marie Mageo, an American psychological anthropologist at Washington State University who lived in Samoa from 1981 to 1989, explored the cultural significance of women’s hair and its relation to spirit possession, social norms and the behaviors expected of Samoan girls.
Mageo said that in Samoan villages, people always styled their hair in different ways—whether by cutting, oiling, liming, shaving, or combing. The villagers applied lime to make their hair light-colored or stain it to a deep red. Women accessorized their hair with flowers.
In her paper titled “Hairdos and Don’ts: Hair Symbolism and Sexual History in Samoa,” Mageo said European contact in Samoa began around 1830.
Back then, a woman’s hairstyle reflected her status. For example, the hairstyle called “tutagita” consisted of a “shaved pate with a tuft hanging down over her left temple, from which a long tail was left to dangle down the cheek.” The tutagita hairstyle was restricted to young virgin women.
Mageo cited the essay titled “Magical Hair” by Edmund Leach, a prominent anthropologist, who noted that long hair expressed unrestrained sexuality, while “removing hair” symbolized sexual restraint.
Mageo noted that in the late 1920s, girls were severely beaten and their heads shaved as punishment for promiscuity. If a girl behaved “too freely,” her parents were likely to drag her home by the hair, literally.
If a girl was caught in a compromising situation, her parents were likely to shave her head. Shaving a Samoan girl’s head was intended to suppress boys’ sexual interest in her. A girl with a shaved head sent the message that she was not ready to enter into a sexual relationship.
In 1969, Canadian anthropologist C.R. Hallpike’s essay “Social Hair” pointed out that Samoan men and women shave their heads during funeral rites, while some celibate people also wore long hair. Hallpike said that long hair symbolized freedom from social regulation while short or bound hair signified obedience to society's rules or to those in positions of authority.
In the 20th century, Samoans held a superstitious belief that girls who wore their hair loose or accessorized it with red hibiscus courted the danger of being possessed by female spirits.
Legend had it that two female spirits, Le Telesa and Sauma’iafe, who haunted the villages, didn’t like it when women wore their hair loose or combed it down at night. Mothers feared the spirits might possess their daughters while walking around the village with it down.
According to tall tales, Telesa would angrily possess any girl wandering into the forest with her hair down or combing it near the river after swimming. A display of long hair was considered flaunting. To appease and exorcise the angry spirit, the possessed girl would have to cut off her long hair.
Mageo noted that in old Samoa, a girl’s shaved head signified her virginity. Virgins were called “girls” and became “women” only when they got married. Females who were not virgins but still lived with their families were still called “girls” as long as they had not given birth.
During pre-contact Samoa, a girl’s virginity was the pride and boast of her tribe. A woman’s virginity made her eligible to contract marriages in a state where virginity was a requirement.
To raise the status of a village, the townsfolk prepared a “taupou” or a high-ranking girl to be married off to a man of equal status. The girl was pampered and decorated. To enhance her sex appeal, her pubic hair was oiled and combed to attract a fine selection of high-titled men— the “chiefs”— who were potential husbands.
These marriages often didn’t last long. They would usually end when the taupou got pregnant. She couldn’t remarry, but the chief would marry another taupou. When the chief died, all of his children were considered heirs to his title. Any taupou who had a child from the chief would elevate the village’s status.
The English missionaries who Christianized Samoa in the 19th century encouraged a shift in values. The pastors taught young women that they could be in a love-based relationship and that they didn’t have to marry for status purposes.
By the 1920s, several Samoans who had adopted European values refused to allow their daughters to become "taupou.” Girls began binding their hair up to indicate good behavior and fit into society’s rules, although some were still defiant. One Samoan woman told Mageo how their parents made her and her sisters wear their hair up when they went anywhere. The woman said that one of her sisters would let her straight black hair down as soon as she was out of sight from their house.
Raquel Bagnol is a longtime journalist. She worked as a reporter for Marianas Variety on Saipan and Island Times in Palau. Send feedback to gukdako@yahoo.com
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