Hair
Subtitle: its power and meaning in Asian cultures
By: edited by Alf Hiltebeitel and Barbara D. Miller ; foreword by Gananath Obeyesekere.
Contributors: Hiltebeitel, Alf.; Miller, Barbara D., 1948-
Publisher: State University of New York Press; SUNY Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Albany
Language: eng
Number of pages: 297
Subjects: Hair -- Social aspects -- Asia.; Hair -- Erotic aspects -- Asia.; Hairstyles -- Asia -- History.; Ornamental hairwork -- Asia -- History.; Asia -- Social life and customs.
Description: Hair - whether present or absent, restored or removed, abundant or scarce, long or short, bound or unbound, colored or natural - marks a person as clearly as speech, clothing, and smell. While hair's high salience as both sign and symbol extends cross-culturally through time, its denotations are far from universal. Hair is an inter-disciplinary look at the meanings of hair, hairiness, and hairlessness in Asian cultures, from classical to contemporary contexts.

The contributors draw on a variety of literary, archaeological, religious, and ethnographic evidence. They examine scientific, medical, political, and popular cultural discourses. Topics covered include monastic communities and communities of fashion, hair codes and social conventions of rank, attitudes of enforcement and rebellion, and positions of privilege and destitution.

Different interpretations include hair as a key aspect of female beauty, of virility, as obscene, as impure, and linked with other symbolic markers in bodily, social, political, and cosmological constructs.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.