Cornrows and Dreds: Black Hair History

Photo "African girl" by: istockphoto.com/poco_bw

"When the African people were torn from their cultures during the Atlantic slave trade, many forms of silent resistance arose. Some of these were in the ancient African tradition of cornrow braiding and locking hair." Read more: How to Make Cornrow Patterns. Continuing our series of blogs on the sociology of fashion we investigate the anthropological and sociological significance of traditional African hairstyles which have become popular in our western hip-hop culture. From the book: Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, "White people remarked, “dreadful” to the unattended locks of slaves emerging from the ships after months of voyaging in unhygenic conditions. The “a” was later dropped to remove the negative connotation from the term dredlocks." (Page 125). Below are some interesting links to informational resources regarding African hairstyles, including an interesting talk given by ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash regarding the mathematics and fractal patterns seen throughout Africa which continue to be reflected in the cornrow hairstyles even today and the wonderful online educational software application "Cornrow Curves" for history, understanding and the making your own cornrow designs! View yourself in various casual hairstyles at TheHairStyler.com!

Hip-Hop and Krunk Artist Digidoo has his own twist.