The Number of Hair
I resisted a growing compulsion to cut my hair, although in moments of great distraction, I thought it was my eyes they wanted, or my soft belly…
—Marie Howe, “What The Angels Left”
THE STORY of Rapunzel is a familiar one: beautiful princess, stolen from loving parents and locked in a doorless tower by an evil witch, possesser of hundreds of feet of hair, thick and strong enough to loose from the window and provide a means for the witch to enter the tower when she demanded it—and pretty enough to lure in a young prince who happened by the tower.
IN THE religion in which I was raised, we women were not allowed to cut our hair, not even to trim the split ends.
I was given the scripture that formed the basis for this belief, found in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 11: “For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.” We were strict followers of the King James Version, the only one considered a real translation, but the New International Version reads more clearly: “For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.”
If you want to cut your hair off, you might as well shave it, my mother would say. And that’s. Or sometimes, even, . My grandfather was the pastor of our Pentecostal church and this was considered one of The Big Sins, the ones that were mentioned regularly, adhered to with the passion of someone surely doomed to hell the moment she touched a pair of scissors. As a child, I mostly didn’t question the rules—I didn’t dare question hellfire and brimstone—but I did develop a fascination with giving haircuts to my Barbie and other dolls.
