During the postrizhiny ceremony Slovenians would hold the first cut hair high in their hand, Macedonians would place them in a sieve. In some Slavic regions locks of hair have to be destroyed or got rid of. For example, Slovaks, Belarusians and Ukrainians toss them into a fire or into a stove. Belarusians would say these words: “Valosiki gari, a galava ne bali” (Hair is on fire, but no headache). Sometimes the hair is thrown into the river or buried under a fruit tree. It is believed that the “ancestral” hair should not get to the birds. Slavs believe that if the birds weave that hair into the nest, the child will suffer from headaches.
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In some other Slavic traditions, it was forbidden to destroy the trimmed hair. The first cut locks were kept by the Serbs in the house, in a special box with beeswax, Russians kept them in a flour sieve, Bulgarians – under a child’s pillow.
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Actions with cut locks could depend on the gender of the child. Belarusians could put the boy’s hair in a barn for oxen, and Bulgarians buried it under a pear tree. The first hair locks of girls in Belarus were also thrown into a loom, and in Bulgaria and the Brest region they were buried under a willow, apple tree, cherry tree, or under a rose bush.
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Do you know what was done with your first cut hair?
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More interesting facts can be found in: “Slavic Antiquities” – encyclopedic dictionary in 5 volumes by Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Artist: Magdalena Szynkarczuk https://facebook.com/MagdalenaSzynkarczukArt
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