If the hair was considered to be the special source of strength and
hence frequently of life, that of the kings and priests, in whose
existence the primitive tribe believed its own communal life to be
bound up, would naturally be a matter of peculiar concern. That it
was so has been shown in the _Golden Bough_. Two hundred years ago
the hair and nails of the Mikado of Japan could only be cut when he
was asleep. [314] The hair of the Flamen Dialis at Rome could be cut
only by a freeman and with a bronze knife, and his hair and nails when
cut had to be buried under a lucky tree. [315] The Frankish kings were
never allowed to crop their hair; from their childhood upwards they
had to keep it unshorn. The hair of the Aztec priests hung down to
their hams so that the weight of it became very troublesome; for they
might never crop it so long as they lived, or at least till they had
been relieved from their office on the score of old age. [316] In the
Male Paharia tribe from the time that any one devoted himself to the
profession of priest and augur his hair was allowed to grow like that
of a Nazarite; his power of divination entirely disappeared if he cut
it. [317] Among the Bawarias of India the Bhuva or priest of Devi may
not cut or shave his hair under penalty of a fine of Rs. 10. A Parsi
priest or Mobed must never be bare-headed and never shave his head or
face. [318] Professor Robertson Smith states: "As a diadem is in its
origin nothing more than a fillet to confine hair that is worn long,
I apprehend that in old times the hair of Hebrew princes like that of a
Maori chief, was taboo, and that Absalom's long locks (2 Sam. xiv. 26)
were the mark of his political pretensions and not of his vanity. When
the hair of a Maori chief was cut, it was collected and buried in a
sacred place or hung on a tree; and it is noteworthy that Absalom's
hair was cut annually at the end of the year, in the sacred season
of pilgrimage, and that it was collected and weighed." [319]