Sikha - Similar Hairstyles

Similar Hairstyles

Hindus have a common belief that the śikhā "allows God to easily pull one to paradise". While the śikhā has been known to exist in India for from as far back as Chanakya, some scholars have argued that this be an Islamic, or at least an Arabian superstition, as the following passages may illustrate:

Sir Thomas Herbert, 1st Baronet (1606–1682) described a similar hairstyle worn by Persians in his book 'Travels in Persia':

"The Persians allow no part of their body hair except the upper lip, which they wear long and thick and turning downwards; as also a lock upon the crown of the head, by which they are made to believe their Prophet will at Resurrection lift them into paradise. Elsewhere their head is shaven or made incapable of hair by the oil dowae (daway) being thrice anointed. This had been made the mode of the Oriental people since the promulgation of the alcoran (Al Quran), introduced and first imposed by the Arabians."

In 'Passages of Eastern Travel', Harper's magazine, 1856, p. 197, an American traveller wrote:

"All Arabs, men and boys, have their heads shaved, leaving only a scalp lock, said by some to be left in imitation of the Prophet, who wore his own thus; and by others said to be for the convenience of the angel who will pull them out of the graves when the day of rising shall come."

Riffian (Berber) men of Morocco had the custom of shaving the head but leaving a single lock of hair on either the crown, left, or right side of the head, so that the angel Azrael is able "...to pull them up to heaven on the Last Day."

High-born Chamorri men of the indigenous Chamorro people of the Mariana Islands also wore a hairstyle similar to the śikhā. (see statues of Chief Gadao or Chief Quipuha in Chief Quipuha Park, Paseo de Susana peninsula, Agana, Guam.) Later, particularly on the island of Guam, this śikhā-like top-knot hairstyle became somewhat of a political statement for young men:

"In the late 1980s, early 1990s there was a resurgence of the top-knot hair style. One of our senators now, before he became a 'certified' politician, was sort of a radical activist. He first he started out with a group called the Chamorro Che‘lu’s. Che‘lu means 'brother' or 'sister,' but his group, they were all young men, and really macho. They all had their hair cut to have a top-knot. And that fueled a debate: 'Do I have to have a top-knot in order to be a Chamorro?' Some guys would wear their hair long and you wouldn’t know it was a top-knot until they pulled it up and you could see that they shaved the whole underpart. It was really threatening, and made some people really nervous. But the fact that such people are now senators and they tend to get a lot of votes, that’s a sign to me that people are really taking issues of culture a lot more seriously, at least the grass roots population."

Another śikhā-like hairstyle existed in eastern Europe. Sviatoslav I of Kiev reportedly wore a scalplock, similar to the śikhā, to signify his 'noble birth'.

The oseledets, or khokhol hairstyle of the Ukrainian Cossacks, or Zaporozhians, was quite similar to the śikhā, although it may sometimes have been situated not at the crown, but towards the front of the head. Indeed, another Ukrainian word for this particular hairstyle is чуприна, chupryna meaning 'forelock'. According to legend, Zaporozhians would grow their scalplocks to provide "...a handle by which the enemy could carry a Cossack's head, should he succeed in severing it."

A stone head discovered at the Neolithic site of Nevalı Çori in Anatolia features what some have interpreted as an early example of a śikhā, perhaps the mark of a priest or shaman. More likely it represents a snake, since snakes are prominent in the iconography of Neolithic SE Anatolia, though why a snake should be depicted on top of a shaven head has not been satisfactorily explained.

The scalplock of many Native American tribes (particularly of the eastern woodlands, such as the Huron) is very similar in appearance to the śikhā, although like the Cossack oseledets, a much different meaning was applied to this hairstyle compared to the Hindu śikhā.

The śikhā may also be referred to as 'choti', 'kudumi' or 'chuda'. It should not be confused with the rattail (haircut) nor the mullet hairstyle, both popularized in the 1980s.