31 Days of Halloween : Illumination’s Haunted HAIRATHON!
- AuntieWicked
- Oct 27, 2010
- 5 min read
Lumi’s Haunted Things and Stuff:
Holy Haunted Hair!
(We may need Batman.)
Somebody call Lumi’s Auntie cause this is getting really scary! In looking around for a haunted things and stuff to write, Lumi accidentally found a very strange rumor! It was a terrible rumor that ran round the internet in 2008. Could it be? that some of those $10,000 weaves out there are made from DEAD People’s hair? After Lumi gave herself CPR, she discovered another girl who had gone looking for the source of pricey and perhaps haunted hair! The girl was singer, Jamelia and after much traveling she came away unconvinced that the sources of hair for extensions were 100% verifiable or moral. The terror of someone who has passed having their hair cut off after death to be sold for extensions was so scary it became the inspiration for this Japanese film called Exte (you might want to get your blankie before you watch this trailer):
Its seems ALL urban legend right? If it is, your auntie lumi would like to declare, that it may very well be the oldest urban legend on the books! According to the Encyclopedia of Hair, during the plagues in England(1665-1666) there was fear and even belief that wigs were being made from hair of the dead! Not just any dead either, the beheaded sufferers of the plague!
Poor Daniel Defoe , Were you wearing haunted plague zombie hair? Oh my!
It also became very clear that it’s not strange to fear haunting or residual feelings and power from hair. Doubly so, if you have hair that was sacrificed in the name of humility weaved into your super glam style. Whatcha talking about LUMI? I will tell you, it is 100% true that some 25% of the high end hair on the market today comes from Indian temples! You know, where worshipers sacrifice their hair in prayer? Oh my luminations! That is scary and wrong – scary wrong! The people themselves make nothing off their hair but it’s said to go to local charities? How can anyone wear someones prayer of humbleness on their head and NOT be haunted? Other sources of hair are various poor towns in the world where women and children sell their hair for almost nothing!
Lumi, has learned this Halloween blog round that the truth is often VERY VERY much scarier than any legend! Scary, magical, and powerful, the world of hair superstitions and for factorial references seem endless!! In one google book, Lumi found a 1968 document of recreating an ancient Mexican custom where the girls had the men CHOP OFF their hair with an AXE to make it grow ‘twice as fast”. Hair captured during that time was considered SUPER powerful…maybe help make the girl fall in LOVE WITH YOU! The power of HAIR to invoke memory and warning was understood very much by our ancestors around the world and throughout time. Native tribes almost everywhere used hair in powerful (often mourning) ceremony.
Auntie Wicked also remarks that this sort of hair cutting, as an appropriate show of mourning, was practiced all over the world! Romans and later Europeans, made mementos of the dead from hair. During the middle ages, Lumi found note of human hair used for all KINDS OF things like belts, ropes, and embroidery!
Even today, in some Southern African tribal cultures the act of shaving off the hair both head and facial is seen as the proper sacrifice for mourning of the dead ! In a book, by Sir James Frazer (who has an EXCELLENT NAME btw ), it is documented that it was not uncommon amongst various tribes and villages to associate the fate of their hair with their own fate! Condition your extensions well ladies!! Your actions on that weave may still yet be connected to the girls and boys they came from!!
Lumi also found, a whole world of uhmm art? It’s called “Mourning Jewelry” and it’s all made from hair of the dead! This guy collects lots of it….creepy? but fascinating!
Many things were made of hair during the Victorian era -(1837-1901) – Such as this intricate hair wreath. Apparently, hair was saved throughout life, for some, in what was called a hairkeeper. To modern people, and for sure for Lumi, picking hair out of a brush and keeping it, is JUST as creepy as wearing dead people extensions but we are certainly known to keep locks of baby hair…
…or DOG hair? Yes – DOG HAIR and they don’t just keep it in a ribbon! Lumi found that some people out there are making SWEATERS of their dogs hair, especially those who have shuffled off this erhmm furry coil and moved onto the great doggy biscuits beyond! And these people,like the Victorians, collected the dogs hair throughout much of their lives! Seriously, Google dog hair sweaters – it’s amazing gross!
Aside from people making hair shirts from dogs fur, there are people out there still making jewelry out of hair as mementos of the dead or perhaps a loved one:
I wonder if they do dogs?
Hair of the dead has been used in curses, spells, rituals, prayers, mementos, and maybe in extensions! Though Lumi warns against it -warns herself – warns everyone *calls Batman* …thinks this is like blood diamonds.
Stranger and strangerly, you can get a diamond made out of your hair, or a dead person’s hair or their ashen remains…*shudder* Lumi has discovered that the same wonder, horror, and at worst terror associated with ghostly haunting can be attached with or without glue to the strange world of hair for sale. For real! Human hair, like blood, seems to carry some of our life force and be a powerful symbol of our identity. So very much true for the many stories about haunted dolls with human hair!
This is Pupa -Be wary – very wary.
Haunted American Tours says she moves and makes faces but the family can’t rid of it because I guess it is a family heirloom! Lumi says, “Creepy doll needs to go! ” but apparently she is not harming people beyond being super skincrawly!
Pupa – was made in the likeness of it’s original owner and human hair was bought to affix to the head. Putting real hair on doll’s heads wasn’t as weird as it sounds now back then before the advent of blessed nylon hairs that save little girls from stroking their dead grandmother’s hair whenever they play dolly.
But wait – it gets weirder! Meet Okiku.
They say her hair was once chin length. Now the monks keep the doll and the spirit of the child, said to be within, safe at Mannenji temple.
Be cautious Auntlings, before taking someones lovely locks and clipping or gluing it to your head! You might just get HAUNTED by their presence! Or maybe, you will just have a hankering for a good curry! Who knows? Do you? Have you been haunted by hair? extensions? hairy ghosts? Been to a haunted hair salon? We want to know!
But hurry we are almost our of Halloween spirit and will soon be only fostering holiday spirit which involves not being scared of scary hair. Lumi thanks the seasons for being seasonal – she’s had almost just enough of spooky and can’t wait for the holly jollies of Christmas to roll in!
But in case you are looking for more hairy hauntings here’s my final more overstuffs:
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