Submit, Bridget Boakye is a writer, activist, and entrepreneur based in Accra, Ghana. For example, to signal that they wanted to escape, women would braid a hairstyle called departes. In recent years, the controversy surrounding braids and braided hair has become a topic of heated discussion. From warriors and kings in Ethiopia to young women coming of age in West Africa, braided styles were significant to where you came from and where you were going in life, according to the book entitled Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America by Ayana Byrd and Lori L. Tharps. With a little alliteration, it’s all … In the ‘60s and ‘70s, America experienced its first natural hair movement when the Black Power Movement started to rock picked out afros as well as cornrows in an effort to reject the Euro-centric beauty standards, as Emma Dabiri wrote. Hair braiding has a long history of innovation and adaption in Black America. Once their hair began to grow back, plaits, braids, and cornrows were the most convenient hairstyle for slaves to have their hair neat and maintained for a week. The men in certain tribes would wear braids that helped them prepare physically and spiritually for war. ✊ Many African women braided rice or seeds into their hair before journeying the Middle Passage, on their way to enslavement or braided it into their children’s hair before separation, so that they could eat. Enter email address to receive updates from Face2face Africa Egyptian law prohibited slaves … (Photo: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images). As mentioned earlier, Asprilla Garcia also spoke on how hairstyles were a mode of communication within communities, with … Ever since African civilizations bloomed, hairstyles have been used to indicate a person’s marital status, age, religion, ethnic identity, wealth, and rank within the community. This act of using hair as a tool for resistance is said to have been evident across South America. This tradition of female styling in cornrows has remained popular throughout Africa, particularly in the Horn of Africa and West Africa. Braids? According to Know Your Caribbean on Instagram, braids were also used in order to hide rice or seeds into their hair before their Middle Passage journey. People brought from Africa to the U.S. as slaves would braid rice seeds into their hair so they wouldn’t starve. Women often washed and conditioned their hair with butter, kerosene and bacon grease. She is currently an Amplify Africa Fellow and member of the Global Shapers Accra Hub. There are also Native American paintings as far back as 1,000 years showing cornrows as a hairstyle. The braid patterns … But more interestingly so, Suriname is the only place where one can find a specific grain of rice from Africa. The theft of these customs from one continent evolved into new cultural traditions on another. Whereas it used to be worn by children, especially young African and African American girls, the style has become widely popular across women of all ages. Enslaved Africans also used cornrows to transfer and create maps to leave plantations and the home of their captors. Black hair has been ridiculed, mocked, discriminated against, and policed since the first colonizers arrived on the continent of Africa. Answer: Twice in the Bible, braided hair is seemingly spurned. For some, it may seem frivolous, but for Black women, understanding our plight in the United States means understanding our need to be protective of who we are and what we do. In this book, they describe the primary reason behind braiding patterns in Africa, especially West Africa, and how different braids were an indicator of particular regions: “In the early fifteenth century, hair functioned as a carrier of messages in most West African societies. Various tribes throughout the continent of Africa had unique braiding styles to set them apart. They decorate their hair with beads and cowrie shells. They like red and use this color to dye their hair. When African peoples were brutally kidnapped and arrived in unfamiliar lands in 1619, they were stripped of their traditional garb, practices and rituals unique to their ethnic groups. The style also fit with the requirement that their hair be neat and tidy while working on plantations. Wigs such as this were often styled with braided pieces of human hair, wool, palm fibers and other materials set on a thick skullcap. 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We must get past it, and Black women can surely be the ones to help the world do it. The Miango women cover their braids with scarves and decorate with leaves. Now to its role during the Transatlantic Slave Trade: During the Atlantic Slave Trade, many slaves were forced to shave their hair to be more ‘sanitary’ and to also move them away from their culture and identity.