Charles Martel sent Pepin, his son, to
Luithprand, king of the Lombards, that he might cut his first
locks, and by this ceremony hold for the future the place of his
illustrious father. To make peace with Alaric, Clovis became his
adopted son by offering his beard to be cut. Among the Caribs the
hair constituted their chief pride, and it was considered
unequivocal proof of the sincerity of their sorrow, when on the
death of a relative they cut their hair short. Among the Hebrews
shaving of the head was a funeral rite, and among the Greeks and
Romans the hair was cut short in mourning, either for a relative
or for a celebrated personage. According to Krehl the Arabs also
had such customs. Spencer mentions that during an eruption in
Hawaii, "King Kamahameha cut off part of his own hair" . . . "and
threw it into the torrent (of lava)."
The Tonga regarded the pubic hairs as under the special care of
the devil, and with great ceremony made haste to remove them. The
female inhabitants of some portions of the coast of Guinea remove
the pubic hairs as fast as they appear. A curious custom of
Mohammedan ladies after marriage is to rid themselves of the
hirsute appendages of the pubes. Depilatory ointments are
employed, consisting of equal parts of slaked lime and arsenic
made into a paste with rose-water.
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