“It’s just hair”

Here’s a another example of the attempts of slave owners to impose headwraps on women of African descent as a means of seperation. (Read about Headrags and the Slave here).

A little background:

In New Orleans 1700s, due to the scarcity of European women, it was permissible and acceptable in society for Europeans to have long term extramarrital relationships with women of African descent. The children of these unions as well as a practice for freeing soldiers and workers who excelled at their jobs resulted in a large population of free people of color.

Placage was a recognized system in which European men had something of a common-law marriage to the women of color. It was not unusual for a white man to have a white wife in one area and his placee. Probably for the first time in this new America, these women of color (who were usually cultured, wealthy, and well coiffed)  were perceived as a threat to the local European women. There had also been complaints of men making advances towards Caucasian women, mistaking them for the “mixed race” women.

In response, and to lessen the popularity of the ever growing size of the “people of color”, the governor of Louisiana at the time created what are known as the tignon laws. He required that free women of color wear headwraps. They also were forbidden to wear any fine clothes, plumes or jewelry in their hair, go out at night without a lantern, or gather in assemblages at night.

This law was an attempt to reassign these women to their “proper” station in life. Making them wear a head kerchief was meant to tie them back their slave station in life.

The women who were targeted by this law found a way around it. With their headwraps, called tignon (pronounced tiyon), they used the finest materials and decorated them with ribbons and jewelry. The tignon was worn many different ways by women and became quite the fashion statement.

Needless to say, the Tignon laws had very little effect on the longterm relationships between the two races. The practices of placage continued until the Civil War and Reconstruction occurred.

Resources:

Creole: the history and legacy of Louisiana’s free people of color By Sybil Kein

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Hairwraps, kerchiefs, head rags, whatever you want to call them, have a significant history in America. We now wear head wraps and scarves as accessories. They are cute, we like finding different fabrics for them, and they give our hair a little pizazz.

But there was another time in America when wearing a head rag/scarf/whatever was a very different thing. The time I’m referring to is of course slavery.

Yes, I’ve hopped back on the slavery train again.  Why? Because so many of the ideas we have (and when I say “we” I mean African Americans in general) about our hair stem from the horrors imposed during the course of slavery.

In Africa, the headwrap was a part of the outfit. Just like some of you are dying for a new pair of Uggs, the same might have been true for the average West African lady hoping for a new headwrap (I’m kidding, but you get my point).Of course during slavery, fashion is kind of put on the back burner.

So, anyhoo, the head rag did serve practical purposes.They were either supplied by their masters per rations or procured by the slaves themselves from a weaver or recycled pieces of clothing. It protected the hair from grime and sun while working out in the fields. It offered protection when carrying heavy loads on one’s head and minor protection from lice and ringworm. It absorbed sweat and prevented it from stinging the eyes of the wearer.  But the headrag was so much more than this during the period of slavery.

For whites, it was a way to further implement control over their slaves. From The African American Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols:

The earliest, South Carolina’s Negro Act of 1735, “specifically set a standard of dress for the enslaved and free African Americans” (ibid. 132). In 1740 amendments, South Carolina’s slave code further elaborated the dress regulations (Genovese, 1974:359). In 1786, while Louisiana was a Spanish colony, the governor enacted a dress code which forbade: “females of color … to wear plumes or jewelry”; this law specifically required “their hair bound in a kerchief” (Crete, 1981: 80-81; also Gayarre, 1885: 178-179 and Wares, 1981:135).

In the antebellum period, the Southern whites’ concern regarding the symbol- ism inherent in the dress of African Americans continued. Citing one instance, Richard C. Wade writes that a Savannah editor bemoaned the “extravagant” dress of city blacks. Wade says that the journalist, ” observing that a turban or handkerchief for the head was good enough for peasants,…noted that ‘with our city colored population the old fashioned turban seems fast disappearing’ ” (Savannah Republican 6 June 1849, quoted in Wade, 1981:128-129).

From the same article, it seemed that blacks also used the headwrap system to mark status:

In addition, headwraps functioned as status symbols within the African American communities Louis Hughes, born 1843, enslaved in Mississippi and Virginia, noted: “The cotton clothes worn by both men and women (house servants), and the turbans of the latter, were snowy white” (1897) 1969:43). After the family moved to the city, Hughes recalled, “Each of the women servants wore a new gay colored turban, which was tied differently from that of the ordinary servant, in some fancy knot” (42).

Headwraps were also worn in the black community, even post slavery, for religious ceremonies and to denote age and marital status. It’s so interesting that what’s your on head has such an impact on everyday life.

Sound familiar?

I have two more write ups concerning headwraps coming up, stay tuned

References:

Hair story: untangling the roots of Black hair in America By Ayana D. Byrd, Lori L. Tharps

The African American Headwrap: Unwinding the Symbols By: Helen Bradley Griebel

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I haven’t done a “It’s just hair” post in awhile so here’s one I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It’s about a style called the conk. African American men in the early to mid half of the last century wore their hair in this style by essentially relaxing it and styling it usually in a pompadour (combing the sides of the hair back and curling the top over itself).

Little Richard--So pretty!

You might be asking yourself why I chose a relaxed style as a subject. Because it shows that black women were not the only victim of the hair “assimilation” left over from slavery.The conk started with the musicians of the Swing Era and spilled over to rock n roll.

The term “conk” is actually short for congalene and it was a concoction made of potatoes, eggs, and lye. Though there were commercial products available, most men used a homemade mixture.

And just like current relaxers, they took a lot of work including:

• hours of hot irons
• combing and greasing wet hair into a conk
• fighting reversion
• wearing “do-rags” to hold the conks into place at night

Nat King Cole--I love this man even if his hair was straighter than a needle!

The conk lost its popularity in the 1960s during the black power movement. Malcolm X spoke of having one in his book, calling it his “first really big step towards self-degradation”.  From Malcolm X’s autobiography description of how it felt to get a conk, done by his friend Shorty:

My head caught fire. I gritted my teeth and tried to pull the sides of the kitchen table together. The comb felt as if it was raking my skin off…my knees were trembling.

How he felt after:

My first view in the mirror blotted out the hurting. I’d seen some pretty conks, but when it’s the first time, on your own head, the transformation, after a lifetime of kinks, is staggering. The mirror reflected Shorty behind me. We were both grinnin’ and sweating. On top of my head was this thick, smooth sheend of red hair-real red-as straight as any white man’s

And his later reflections:

How ridiculous I was!…this was my first really big step toward self-degradation when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh with lye, in order to cook my natural hair until it was limp, to have it look like a white man’s hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in American who are so brainwashed into believing that the black people are “inferior” -and white people “superior”-that they will even violate their God-created bodies to try to look “pretty” by white standards.

James Brown--Love the superman curl!

So, however you might feel about Malcolm X, his observations from then and now are interesting and, in my humble opinion, have a ring of truth to them.

As I said, the conk went the way of the dinosaur in the late 60s and gave way to the afro, only to be replaced by other chemical processes among men like the Jheri Curl. And the beat goes on…

Chuck Berry--Cool shot

Even though it’s sad that they felt unacceptable sporting their natural hair textures, these men that I’ve posted pictures of did break a lot of musical barriers for African Americans and all of them were/are very talented.

I still think each of them are beautiful and it brings a smile to my face to see them. With this air of nostalgia,  I can’t help wondering if the conk might come back.

Who would be someone would could pull this style off? Hmmm….

or maybe…

Resources and good reads:

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