Note 216.1 — Chapter XI · SACRED WELLS AND TREES.

A few other customs remain to be considered. Prominent among these is a rite well known to all students of classical antiquity—that of the consecration of locks of hair at various shrines. It was usually performed in consequence of a vow made by the parents at birth. The actual ceremony took place on arriving at manhood or womanhood. A lock of the hair and of the sprouting beard of the youth, a tress from the maiden’s head, was cut off and presented to the god; and in Greece the youth then received the clothing of an ephebos and was admitted to such of the privileges of a free citizen as his age entitled him. The dedication of the hair was regarded as a symbol of that of the entire person. And this dedication was extended to other occasions, such as before marriage, before and after childbed, or at the time of making or fulfilling a vow. Pausanias mentions a statue of Hygeia hardly to be seen, by reason partly of the hair cut off by women and bound or placed upon it.216.1 On the death of one very dear, a lock of the survivor’s hair was frequently cut off and placed in the corpse’s hand or upon the grave, as Herakles did to Sostratos, and Achilles to Patroklos. So Death was said to cut off the hair of those who were about to die. Euripides represents him as declaring: