Why did a hairstyle custom associated with archery appeal to the British?

Similar to the traditional rituals and aesthetics that the ancient Han Chinese attributed to the tresses of their hair, the British settlers in 17th-century colonial North America also used the hairstyles of their people as a kind of demarcation line between the civilized and the barbaric. But surprisingly, in the process, there were also Englishmen who followed the custom of the "barbarians" and took the initiative to "shave their heads".

In 1617, Samuel Purchas, a British encyclopedist dedicated to the collection of aboriginal stories, quoted some testimonies from the colony of Virginia, confirming that "at Jamestown some Englishmen began to shave off the right side of their hair, after the manner of the natives of the Algonquins". ". In his writings, Porchez described the hairstyles of these Indians as "designed to imitate evil, and consequently these colonists, who imitated them, were also a band of devils."

A gathering of the Powhatan tribal confederation of the Algonquian language group

While Pecce's words are repugnant to such idolatry, they reveal that the colonists in the Americas may have picked up some of the same special techniques of the Native Americans during their encounters with them, and that this "devilish hairstyle" was one of them. The "devil's haircut" was one of them.

In fact, this hairstyle was designed to prevent the bowstring or arrow handle from getting tangled in the hair during the process of drawing the bow and shooting arrows, so Algonquin archers chose to shave the right half of their hair, leaving only a small braid. Oko, the mythical Algonquin god of war, wore this hairstyle, which fit his image as the "patron saint who protects the brave with the bow. This combination of practicality and superstition may have been an important factor in attracting commercial adventurers from across the ocean to deviate from the norm in their hairstyles.

Powhatan chieftains in early European paintings

Some people must have wondered why a hairstyle custom so closely associated with archery would be so attractive to the British.

It turns out that in the 16th century British society, the longbow, as the traditional national weapon of the islanders, has always had a very special status. Even on the European continent, where the use of corded guns has become increasingly popular, many Britons are still attracted to this weapon, which has brought them countless honors. This led to a relatively long process in which firearms fully replaced the longbow in the British Isles. The place of the flintlock in England was not finalized until the publication of the Longbow Abolition Act in 1595. Until then, longbowmen were still frequently seen in the ranks of English militia and expeditionary forces. Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to establish a colony in North Carolina, for example, included 150 longbowmen.

The longbow is a lingering English sentiment

Walter Raleigh's North Carolina colony

Longbowmen in the English army under Elizabeth I

On the other hand, the use of bows and arrows remained a cost-effective option on the battlefields of the Americas, even after the enactment of the Longbow Abolition Act. This was due to the battlefield conditions faced by the early European colonists. The power of the corded lance was redundant for the unarmored native warriors, and because of the speed and accuracy of the shot, it was not adequate for the raids that the Indians were known for, as described by the 16th-century Spanish explorer Cabezza de Vega in his journal of North American exploration: "In the open country they [the Indians] do not fear our weapons at all, but consider them a pleasure, for they are not afraid of us, and are not afraid of our weapons. They [the Indians] do not fear our weapons at all in the open country, but rather consider it a pleasure, as it is very difficult for our muskets to hit them in such situations." By contrast, a skilled longbowman could shoot up to seven arrows in a minute, with an accurate range of about 150 yards. Because of this, some of the early colonists were often forced to choose to take up their longbows and fight back in the face of a surprise attack by hundreds or thousands of Indian troops who were skilled archers.

Indian attacks often caught colonists off guard

Many North American Indian tribes were famous for their bow skills, which made a strong impression on European colonists

The cost-effective advantages of traditional weapons similarly attracted the attention of the early commercial adventure companies that organized the financing of colonial expeditions. It is important to realize that the earliest group of Englishmen active in the North American colonies was made up mostly of willing adventure speculators, or even Puritans unpopular with the Stuarts and uprooted from their homes to escape religious persecution. English merchants, seeking to maximize their profits, naturally did not bear the excessive costs of running the colony for these people. One of the most famous examples occurred after the massacre of the Jamestown colony by the Powhatan tribes in 1622, when John Smith, as head of the colony, made an urgent request to the Virginia Company to equip an army to travel to North America to "drive away and subdue those Powhatan savages." Rather, the Company denied the request for reasons of cost savings. In the alternative, the Company, with the King's approval, requisitioned large quantities of "obsolete and unserviceable" weaponry from the Tower of London and other arsenals and shipped it to the Americas for the colonists' self-defense. These included 400 longbows and 800 bundles of arrows. Although the weapons never reached Virginia, the colonists chose to leave them on the island of Bermuda, not far from the North American mainland, to prevent them from being stolen by Indians who lacked the ability to cross the sea, and close enough to serve as a reserve in case of emergency.

The Mayflower and the Puritans, early colonists without much support from the mother country

Multiple advantages of sentiment, utility, and cost established that the longbow could still hold its place among the weaponry of the early English colonies. Indeed, the purely weapons-based superiority of the English over the Indians on the early North American colonial battlefields was not maintained for long; "Both sides fought with bows and arrows against each other during the late 16th century and the first forty years of the 17th century, and after that time the Indians began to learn and adapt to firearms tactics as well." Forced by the harsh conditions of the battlefield, both sides showed a certain convergence in tactics, so it's not hard to understand the emergence among the English colonists of hairstyles modeled after those of the Algonquins.

It is often said that "reading history can make one wise, and looking at the past can tell us about the future". But the role of history may not really be as simple as letting us meet the future. Those who have read deep into the past must realize that reading history only gives us greater freedom and initiative to create the future.

Life is more than what lies ahead, there are also poems and distant fields. In Gao's lyrics, besides experiencing a literary complex, we are more importantly pursuing inner freedom and sentiment. Poetry creates a spiritual utopia for us, while Shi Zhe allows us to recognize reality more clearly, and we should live not only in the present, but also in the future. Follow these classics, follow the footsteps of history, lift the veil a little, restore the real scene, feel the passage of time, chase the thoughts of philosophers, little by little explore the spiritual world of mankind, and day by day, meet a wiser self.