ith the cutting of the hair,
from the most ancient times. Many allusions are found in the Greek and
Roman writers to the practice of cutting off the hair of the dead, and
presenting it as an offering to the infernal gods, in order to secure a
free passage to Elysium for the person to whom it belonged. The passage
in the fourth book of the "AEneid," where Iris appears by the command of
Juno to liberate the soul of the expiring Queen of Carthage, by thus
severing from her head the fatal lock, will occur to many of our
readers.

Whatever may have been the origin of this superstition, it is probable
that most of the other notions and customs which have prevailed in
regard to the cutting of the hair are connected with it. The act in this
way naturally became significant of the separation from the living
world of the person on whom it was performed. Of the antiquity of this
practice, we have a proof in a command given by Moses to the Jews:--"Ye
shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for
the dead." These were superstitious customs of the nations by whom they
were surrounded.

The Gentiles used excessive lamentations, amounting to frenzy, at their
funeral rites. According to Bruce, the Abyssinian woman, upon the death
of a near relation, cuts the skin of both her temples with the nail of
her little finger, which she leaves long on purpose; and thus every fair
face throughout the country is disfigured with scars. The same notion of
abstraction from the present life and its concerns is expressed by the
clerical tonsure, so long known in the Christian church, and still
retained among the Roman Catholics. It is still common, also, among
ourselves, for widows, in the earlier period of their mourning, to cut
off their hair, or to remove it back from the brow. Among all rude
nations, besides, the hair has been held in peculiar estimation from its
ornamental nature, and its capability of being formed into any shape,
according to the fancy of its possessor, or the fashion of the country.

Amongst nations, especially, where the ordinary clothing of the people,
from the materials of which it was formed, did not admit of being made
very decorative, this consideration would be much regarded, and still
more where no clothing was worn at all. In such cases, the hair, either
of the head or of the beard, has usually been cherished with very
affectionate care, and the mode of dressing it has been made matter of
anxi