Volume 1

A complete view of the dress and habits of the people of England ... / By Joseph Strutt.

  • Strutt, Joseph, 1749-1802.
Date:
1796
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A complete view of the dress and habits of the people of England ... / By Joseph Strutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    57/500 (page 39)
    .well as upon their foreheads ; “ and thou flialt bind them for a fign upon thine hand, and they lliall be as frontlets between thine eyes h” A modern author, fpeaking of the head-drefs of the Arabs in Yemen, and particularly of the external cap, which w^as often richly embroidered with gold, affures us, that all of them, that he had feen, had thele words : '^here is no God but God; Mohajmned is the apojile of God’, or fome other fentence from the Koran; and this cuftom fecms clearly to have been derived by the Mohammedan Arabians from the frontlets of the Jews. Contrary to the ufage of the Egyptians, who conftantly fhaved their heads, the Ifraelites permitted the growth of their hair; and, when they ufed the razor, it was a fign of deep humiliation, or of mourning ^; but the priefts were forbidden to fhave their heads in times of mourning, becaufe, by fo doing, they defiled themfelves It is not polTible to afcertain how long the hair was fuf- fered to grow upon the head before it was curtailed, nor the manner in. which it was decorated. Long pendent locks were admired by the Ifraelitifh ladies in the days of Solomon ^; and probably it was for this very reafon, that Abfalom, the fon of David, took fuch pains in the culti- vation of his hair, which was fo luxuriant, that, when he lliortened it, as he conftantly did at the conclufion of every year, becaufe the weight of it became burdenfome to him, the quantity he ufually cut off weighed “ two hun- dred Ihekels after the king’s weighth” The Nazarites, upon a religious account, fhaved not their heads, but per- mitted their hair to grow, the full time of their feparation; and for this reafon Sampfon faid to Dalilah, “ There hath not come a razor upon mine head, for I have been a Naza- rite unto God from my mother’s wombh” When the * Deut. chap, vi, verfe 8 ; et alibi. the word ‘7n‘7n fignifies pendulous, or ® La Allah ilia Allah Mohammed raful hanging do-wn, rather than bujhy, or curled. Allah. Niebuhr, ut fupra, p. 55. ® Equal to four pounds, two ounces, 3 Job, chap, i, verfe 20; Haiah, chap. Troy weight, 2 Samuel, chap, xiv, verfe XV, verfe 2 ; et alibi. 2 6. Leviticus, chap, xxi, verfe 5. ’ Judges, chap, xvi, verfe 17. * Canticles, chap, v, verfe ii ; where