If the hair contained a part of the wearer's life and strength its
disposal would be a matter of great importance, because, according
to primitive belief, these qualities would remain in it after it
had been severed. Hence, if an enemy obtained it, by destroying the
hair or some analogous action he might injure or destroy the life and
strength of the person to whom it belonged. The Hindus usually wrap
up a child's first hair in a ball of dough and throw it into a running
stream, with the cuttings of his nails. Well-to-do people also place a
rupee in the ball, so that it is now regarded as an offering. The same
course is sometimes followed with the hair and nails cut ceremoniously
at a wedding, and possibly on one or two other occasions, such as
the investiture with the sacred thread; but the belief is decaying,
and ordinarily no care is taken of the shorn hair. In Berar when the
Hindus cut a child's hair for the first time they sometimes bury it
under a water-pot where the ground is damp, perhaps with the idea
that the child's hair will grow thickly and plentifully like grass in
a damp place. It is a common belief that if a barren woman gets hold
of a child's first hair and wears it round her waist the fertility of
the child's mother will be transferred to her. The Sarwaria Brahmans
shave a child's hair in its third year. A small silver razor is made
specially for the occasion, costing a rupee and a quarter, and the
barber first touches the child's hair with this and then shaves it
ceremoniously with his own razor. [329] The Halbas think that the
severed clippings of hair are of no use for magic, but if a witch can
cut a lock of hair from a man's head she can use it to work magic on
him. In making an image of a person with intent to injure or destroy
him, it was customary to put a little of his hair into the image, by
which means his life and strength were conveyed to it. A few years
ago a London newspaper mentioned the case of an Essex man entering
a hairdresser's and requesting the barber to procure for him a piece
of a certain customer's hair. When asked the reason for this curious
demand, he stated that the customer had injured him and he wished
to 'work a spell' against him. [330] In the Parsi Zend-Avesta it is
stated that if the clippings of hair or nails are allowed to fall in
the ground or ditches, evil spirits spring up from them and devour
grain and clothing in the house. It was therefore ordained for the
Parsis through their prophet Zarathustra that the cuttings of hair
or nails should be buried in a deep hole ten paces from a dwelling,
twenty paces from fire, and fifty paces from the sacred bundles called
_baresman_. Texts should be said over them and the hole filled in. Many
Parsis still bury their cut hair and nails four inches under ground,
and an extracted tooth is disposed of in the same manner. [331] Some
Hindus think that the nail-parings should always be thrown into a
frequented place, where they will be destroyed by the traffic. If
they are thrown on to damp earth they will grow into a plant which
will ruin the person from whose body they came. It is said that about
twenty years ago a man in Nagpur was ruined by the growth of a piece
of finger-nail, which had accidentally dropped into a flower-pot in
his house. Apparently in this case the nail is supposed to contain a
portion of the life and strength of the person to whom it belonged, and
if the nail grows it gradually absorbs more and more of his life and
strength, and he consequently becomes weaker and weaker through being
deprived of it. The Hindu superstition against shaving the head appears
to find a parallel regarding the nails in the old English saying:
Cut no horn
On the Sabbath morn.
Among some Hindus it is said that the toe-nails should not be cut
at all until a child is married, when they are cut ceremoniously by
the barber.