Womans Hair In Slavic History And Tradition

In the end it was not even just Slavic or Muslim women that covered their hair but in fact many cultures over the world had similar traditions and different superstitions regarding women’s uncovered head.

Slavs also believed that by uncovering hair wife could cause damage to their families crop farming. In particular, in the Russian Cherepovets district a married woman could not go out into the yard without a scarf on the head. On the other side Goral Poles believed that bareheaded woman would be eaten by the wolf, probably another superstition. Slavic women were also banned to walk with uncovered hair during a storm – because a thunder would strike and kill them.

The Bulgarians in the Rhodopes, near Zlatograd, believed that a woman’s hair after her death would turn into snakes.

But at the same time loose hair, on the contrary, in some areas could serve as a favorable factor for obtaining a good result in some activities. For example, the Belarusians of Vitebsk dissolved and discovered hair when they would crush flax or in Polesia when they would woven the fabrics.