Polish plait

Polish plait(Latin:Plica polonica,Polish:Kołtun polskiorplika,Kołtunin Polish meaning matted), less commonly known in English asplicaortrichoma, is a particular formation ofhair. This term can refer to either a hairstyle or a medical condition, depending on context. The term is connected to a system of beliefs inEuropeanfolklore, andhealingpractices intraditional medicinein medievalPolish–Lithuanian Commonwealththat believed matted hair was an amulet, or a catchment or trajectory for illness to leave the body.
Larry Wolff in his bookInventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenmentmentions that in Poland, for about a thousand years, some people wore the hair style of theScythians.Zygmunt Glogerin hisEncyklopedia staropolskamentions that Polish plait was worn as a hair style by some people, regardless of gender, in thePinskregion and theMasoviaregion at the beginning of the 19th century. He used the term "kołtun zapuszczony" which denotes artificial formation of Polish plait. According to folklore studies today, the style was formed using liquids orwax. Among liquids, a mixture of wine and sugar was used or washing hair daily with water in which herbs were boiled. The most commonly used herb wasvinca(Vinca major), followed byLycopodium clavatumandmoss, which caused hair to mat. A similar effect can be had by rubbing hair withwax, or inserting a piece of a candle at the hair ends. Newer Polish dictionaries mentionplicaas a disease, but the old ones also mention artificially created plica.
In modern times the hairstyle is also known as mono-dreadlock(or mono-dread for short), alluding to how its structure is comparable to a single, massive strand of adreadlockhairstyle, as well as beaver tailas the mass of hair may resemble the tail of abeaver. The hairstyle can vary in size, from large beaver tails to small plaits.
The Polish plait was quite common in Europe during past centuries when hair grooming was largely neglected. It affected mostly thepeasantry, but was not unusual among higher social classes.
Due tosuperstitiousbeliefs, the Polish plait used to be particularly common in thePolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, hence its English and Latin name. Similarly, in German it is calledWeichselzopf, orVistulabraid,zopfmeaning a braid, and theVistulabeing a river in Poland. Initially, the plait was considered anamuletto keep illness away from the body, as it was believed that when disease resolved it left the body to live in the hair, resulting in lessened suffering. For this reason, people not only allowed it to develop, but even encouraged it. According to M. Marczewska, who researched the subject from the perspective of folklore studies, animistic beliefs and long-held pagan beliefs relating to illness viewed illness as caused by an invading evil spirit, which by convalescence left the body and was less problematic when living in the hair formation, which was then shed naturally or cut and ritualistically disposed of by persons specializing infolk medicineor practitioners of folk magic. As people believed that the formation of plica was a sign of resolving of disease, plica, as a hairstyle, was also formed artificially by washing with mixtures of herbs, sweetened wine, waxing, etc.
In the early 17th century, people began to believe plaits were an external symptom of an internal illness. A growing plait was supposed to take the illness "out" of the body, and therefore it was rarely cut off; in addition, the belief that a cut-off plait could avenge itself and bring an even greater illness discouraged some from attacking it. It was also believed that casting amagicspell on someone could cause that person to develop a Polish plait, hence also the name"elflock"was used in English, alsoHexenzopf(witches' plait) in German.
These convictions were so widespread and strong that some people lived their whole lives with a Polish plait. A plait could sometimes grow very long – even up to 80 centimetres (31 in). Polish plaits could take various forms, from a ball of hair to a long tail. Plaits were even categorized; plaits were "male" and "female", "inner" and "outer", "noble" and "fake", "proper" and "parasitical".
British diaristHester Thrale, in her bookObservations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, described a Polish plait she saw in 1786 in the collection of theElector of SaxonyinDresden: "the size and weight of it was enormous, its length four yards and a half [about 4.1 m]; the person who was killed by its growth was a Polish lady of quality well known in KingAugustus's court."
During theAge of Enlightenment, it became common to use the termsplica polonica(Polish plait) andplica judaica(Jewish plait), as well as the term "Polish ringworm" in English. In addition toantisemitism, there was also prejudice against Eastern Europeans. According to Larry Wolff's bookThe Invention of Eastern Europe, Poles were considered "semi-Asians", the descendants ofTatarsand barbarians. Maurice Fishberg in his bookThe Jews: A Study of Race and Environmentmentions both terms. It was a common belief that plica was a contagious disease which originated in Poland after theMongolinvasion and later spread to other countries.Diderotwrote in hisEncyclopédie(due to his misunderstanding ofMartin Cromer's text) that the Tatar invasion of Poland was the source of plica. An example of the belief in the spread of plica as a contagious disease by foreign hosts was theVictorian-eraBritish belief that the plica was spread like a disease by Polish traders in artificial hair.George Lefevre, in his bookAn Apology for the Nerves(1844), mentions the termsplica polonicaandplica judaicaand also debunks the popular belief that wearing the Polish national costume could cause plica in the wearer. He describes the case of a woman in Berlin who did not wear the Polish national costume, yet was affected with plica. He concluded, "Neither, therefore, are strangers free from it, nor is produced by dress alone."
Zygmunt Glogerin hisEncyklopedia Staropolska[pl]argued that according to research done by theGrimm Brothersand Rosenbaum,plica polonicaand the idea that it spread from Poland was an error, as it was also found among theGermanicpopulation ofBavariaand Rhine River area. He said that the wordweichselzopf(Vistula plait) was a later alteration of the namewichtelzopf(plait of awight);wichtelmeanswightin German, a being or sentient thing.
In the second half of the 19th century, some medical professionals waged a war against superstition and lack of hygiene among the peasantry, and traditional folk medicine. Many plaits, often to the horror of their owners, were cut off. In WesternGalicia, ProfessorJózef Dietlmade a particular effort to examine and treat Polish plaits. He was also a politician, and his methods of dealing with persons with plicas are controversial today: he organized an official census of people suffering from the disease, they were not allowed to receive help by charitable organizations, were forbidden entrance to some buildings such as schools and offices, and he also proposed fines, which spawned rumors that plaits would be taxed. Those practices were said to have helped eradicate the Polish plait in the region. A huge 1.5-meter long plica can be seen preserved in the Museum of the Faculty of Medicine ofJagiellonian University Medical CollegeinKraków. In the areas of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth which were occupied by theRussian Empire, young men with plica were exempt from service in the tsarist army. It is unknown how many plicas were natural or how many were man-made dreadlocks. ThePolishword for the Polish plait,kołtun, is now used figuratively in Poland to denote an uneducated person with an old-fashioned mindset.
Plica was believed to be caused by supernatural entities. The names often describe the believed cause of tangled hair. In Britain this condition was believed to be caused byelves, hence the name "elflock" (mentioned inShakespeareanpoetry and folk tales), although this term could refer to tangles much milder than a Polish plait. Folk belief in Germany associated it with witches or wights (Hexen or  Wichtel) giving plica the names Hexenzopf or Wichtelzopf; in Poland, the cause was an unclean spirit. One of the names of plica in Polish was  wieszczyca, "wieszcz" meansbard, specifically, a folk poet with the gift of prophesy or a vampire-like living person. In German folklore, plica appears in one of the Brothers Grimm'sfairy tales, in which a girl doesn't comb her hair for one year and finds golden coins in her plica.
Many illnesses were associated with plica and were synonymous with the folk name for this condition. According to Marczewska, about thirty diseases were associated with plica in Polish folklore. In German andBohemianspells, there are as many as seventy diseases. Poles were afraid to upset the unclean spirit, and, to pacify it, inserted offerings such as coins into the plica. Kołtun (orgościec, its Polish folk name) did not necessarily describe only the hair formation, it also described the bodily illness without the presence of tangled hair. Pain (especially in joints), rheumatism, etc. were synonymous with it. If plica was present, it was blamed for whims and cravings, which needed to be satisfied promptly; people around a person with plica needed to assist the sufferer to comply with the cravings. Marczewska points out that one old Polish dictionary stated that kołtun created strong cravings, especially for wine (which was imported and expensive).
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