Braid (hairstyle)

The structure is usually long and narrow with each component strand functionally equivalent in zigzagging forward through the overlapping mass of the others.

Structurally, hair braiding can be compared with the process of weaving, which usually involves two separate perpendicular groups of strands (warp and weft).

[4] Another sample of a different origin was traced back to a burial site called Saqqara located on the Nile River, during the first dynasty of Pharaoh Menes, although the Venus' of Brassempouy and Willendorf predate these examples by some 25,000-30,000 years.

During the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Greco-Roman era (a period spanning 3500 BC to 500 AD) many peoples in West Asia, Asia Minor, Caucasus, Southeast Europe, East Mediterranean, Balkans and North Africa such as the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Elamites, Hittites, Arameans, Minoans, Greeks, Persians, Israelites, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hurrians, Etruscans, Phrygians, Dacians, Arabs, Hyksos, Parthians, Medes, Scythians, Chaldeans, Berbers, Mycenaean Greeks, Luwians, Urartians, Lydians, ,Armenians, Colcheans and Ancient Egyptians were depicted in art with braided or platted hair and beards.

At a glance, one individual could distinguish a wealth of information about another, whether they were married, mourning, or of age for courtship, simply by observing their hairstyle.

Braid patterns or hairstyles can indicate a person's community, age, marital status, wealth, power, social position, and religion.

Governor Gavin Newsom signed the CROWN Act into law, banning employers and schools from discriminating against hairstyles such as dreadlocks, braids, afros, and twists.

[10] Later in 2019, Assembly Bill 07797 became law in New York state; it "prohibits race discrimination based on natural hair or hairstyles.

There are pictures going as far back as the year 1884 showing a Senegalese woman with braided hair in a similar fashion to how they are worn today.

Curly Mohawk, Half Updo and Side-Swept Cornrows braids are some of the popular and preferred styles in black culture.

[20][21] In Japan, the Samurai sported a high-bound ponytail (Chonmage), a hairstyle that is still common among Sumo wrestlers today.

After conquering Beijing in 1644 and establishing the Qing Dynasty, they forced the men of the subjugated Han Chinese to adopt this hairstyle as an expression of loyalty, which involved shaving the forehead and sides and leaving a long queue at the back (剃髮易服 tìfà yìfú).

For example, among the Quapaw, young girls adorned themselves with spiral braids, while married women wore their hair loose.

[29] In Jamaica, the Rastafari movement emerged in the 1930s, a Christian faith practiced by descendants of African slaves who often wear dreadlocks and untrimmed beards, in adherence to the Old Testament prohibition on cutting hair.

In the older psychiatric literature, there are occasional references to fetishists who, in order to possess the desired object, would cut off female braids.

For example, Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel described the case of a braid-cutter in Berlin in 1906, who was found in possession of 31 braids.