African Hair Styles

African hair sculpture is what they call it and Africa and to them it is an art. Africans hardly ever leave their hair or their body plain or in the book, it says "natural" state. It says that they spend a lot of time and energy on grooming and self-admiration. Sounds like it's the same way there as it is here because I love to "groom." Ha ha. Anyway, it says they spend a lot of time on their hair and looks but special attention to their hair. The "art" of hairdressing was practiced mostly for women and male hairdressers can hardly be found. The book says that the skill of hairdressing has been handed down from generation to generation and requires artistry, manual dexterity, and patience because many of their styles are elaborate and time-consuming. For most African women hair is a medium for creative self-expression. Now their hair is styled for many different reasons. In some parts of Africa, hairstyles help to determine age, in others ceremonial occasions are marked by special styles. The design and construction of hair depends on different factors, some hair styles may need sisal, clay, the bark of trees, or cloth pads; in other cases it could involve intricate knitting, braiding, and threading of the hair. The most complex styles can take up to several hours and sometimes even days. That's true here also and we got it from them. The slave master's wife's would watch the women braid the kids and each other's hair and would want their hair to be the same as theirs because the styles were so beautiful. Anyway, they found that you could find complex styles only in the interior of the continent where people still live "primitive" and they have time for all that stuff. In urban areas, the styles are simpler where they have adopted western styles.
OK, if you draw a line running from Dakar, Senegal in the west and to Khartoum, Sudan in the east you will see that to the north of the line live the light-skinned, straight-haired Hamites and Semites of North Africa.