In Search of Red Hair

Following yesterday’s trip down orangey lane I’ve did some “Ctrl + F” searches. Looking through the Google Books archive in the hope of finding some more little titbits. My focus being publications from the 19th century.

Like in today’s online world there was a lot of racial content back then. Though it was almost more quaint and endearing. When I first started looking for information about red hair fifteen or so years ago the world was quite different. People generally didn’t say racist things in public - be it in real life or online. And if they did they were very much in a minority. Hidden in some darker region of the web.

So, when I started reading works by 19th century ethnographers, to find their comments about red hair, I was naturally sheepish. I felt naughty for even reading such things. Then, when I actually published their (sometimes disparaging) remarks about redheads, I worried further that I would offend people for simply repeating the quotes. Quotes that often referred to other peoples and races in less than flattering terms too.

Now, when I read some of those articles back, I feel an opposite pull. I cringe that I sounded so woke (that’s an old word itself now, but it’s such an easy shorthand descriptor). By today’s standards I was almost too apologetic. Scared that people would deem me racist for simply discussing the opinions held by those 19th century men.

..the sort of men that would write passages such as:

"The heavy overhanging brow and deep-sunk eye, which, with the high cheek-bones, are generally sufficient to mark out a Scotchman from among a group of Saxon Englishmen.”

Or,

"The frequency of red hair in the east of Scotland is remarkable, and brings to mind Tacitus's description of the Caledonii."

[For further information see here: Pinkerton, Price and Beddoe ]

Anyway, today, in homage, I came across the following little observation, in an 1872 work titled The Desert World, by French writer Arthur Mangin.

“The Kosaks (or Cossacks) are, as we have said, Slaves rather than Tartars. They have blue eyes, red hair, thick lips, a flat nose.”

Interesting.

I also came across a few old proverbs about red hair.

“He is false by nature that has a black head and a red beard”

“A red beard and a black head, catch him with a good trick, and take him dead.”

“Red hair, devil’s hair.”

This last one seems to have been a fairly standard view of red hair throughout medieval Europe.

I also found the following passage about women with red hair in a publication called Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor, Volume 2 (1868):

“Beware of girls with red hair: they are deceitful as foxes. Shun them, as the mariner shuns the lighthouse with its head of flames. For there are the hidden rocks of deceit that would wreck your happiness.”

Just a warning for anyone reading.

The same publication also shared this passage:

“Every woman leaves her husband “for ever” at least three times in her life, as folk striking a bargain pretend to leave the shop, hoping to be called back, and gain by the artifice.”

A clear understanding of women back then it seems too. Every bit as cynical as a modern online male. Though with a touch more tongue in cheek humour.

What any of this tells us about red hair, I don’t know. I’m left with the feeling that some things never change however.