CEREMONIAL HAIRCUTTING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 5, 30 January 1892, Page 113

CEREMONIAL HAIRCUTTING.

IN some Eastern countries children's hair is not cut until they are ten or twelve years of age, the girls then being considered marriageable. Up to that time it is coiled on the top of the head and adorned with fresh flowers. When the great day for cutting comes, there is a grand ceremony and much feasting, tine who was present at a royal hair cutting tells us that the darling of the harem was robed in long flowing garments of silk and lace, confined at the waist by a golden girdle. Her long hair coiled for the last time, was fastened with diamond pins, which gleamed and glittered among fresh white flowers and green leaves like nearly drops of morning dew. There in the pres ence of the ladies, her father, and an officiating priest, surrounded by her maidens, some two hundred in number, she knelt under a canopy of flowers and leaves, while prayers were chanted. Then the beautiful tresses were unbound, her royal father, dipping his fingers in rose water, and drawing them carelessly over her head, clipped oil about an eighth of an inch of hair and threw it into a golden basin, depositing at the same time on a great salver placed ready to receive them, presents of jewels and gold. The priest cuts the next piece, her mother the next, and so on, each guest serving in turn, until the little lady wa» shorn. All gave costly gifts intended for her marriage dower, princes, ministers of state, and dignitaries of all sorts, who waited in the outer courts, sending in theirs by the attendants. The day ended in feasting and display of fireworks.