Before moving into this post I just want to apologize for not posting the entire history series in February, as I had originally planned. I was under the weather during the end of the month and therefore the reason why my posts were scarce. I will still finish this series though and I hope you all enjoy learning about our hair history as I am....
Beautiful tribal women
When
the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade started it was incredibly traumatic to the
African people. So much so that it is still affecting us as descendants, to
this day. They were wrenched from their homeland and in most cases their family
as well and put in chains and loaded on to slave ships to work in the foreign
western world. Their language, way of life and traditional costumes and
everything they loved was taken away from them. The grooming practices that
they were used to was not a priority anymore, survival was the main concern,
not to mention as the slaves got younger, they had limited knowledge of how to
manage their crown as the skill was only passed down to certain women in the
tribe.
Axle grease
The
slaves often wore their hair covered to protect hair from the harmful hot sun,
wind and dirt. When they found time to do their hair, it was done to emulate
the straight hair of their captors. Many
slaves started to hate the natural texture of their hair and could no longer
see the beauty in it.They used a medley
of toxins to achieve the straight look. A couple early straightening agents
were axle grease (also used as a dye) and hot butter knives. Lard and cooking grease were used as pomades
and to moisturize the hair. They used sheep fleece carding tools to
detangle, but this spread scalp diseases such as lice and dandruff.
Fleece carding tool
As you can see it was quite a struggle back in those days on EVERY level, but what can be said is that our people never stopped being creative through all of their hardships. They found ways to exist.
Now
that I’m a curly, I often wonder why it took so long and I want to get to the
bottom of the history of the perception of our coils. As the old adage says, “you won’t know you are going, until you
know where you came from.” I will be doing a series of posts throughout
February as my way of celebrating Black History Month. So here I go:
Before
slavery our hair was something that was always pampered and taken care of.
Usually, the person who washed, moisturized and styled your hair took great
pride in the task and was someone close to you. You trusted them. Often your
hair told a story, depending on the tribe wearing a different hair style was a
way of letting the tribe now at what stage of your life, ie: marital status,
social rank or mourning a loss to name a few.
Argan oil
Hand-carved comb
Black
soap was used widely as a shampoo and shea butter, palm oil and argan oil were
commonly used to moisture and style. There was also great pride in hand-carving
combs.
The combs are literary works of art and to me this says that they loved
their hair with all its kinks and coils. It was important to take proper care
of it.
