His perfect, little face remained serious and still as if he understood the prayerful movements he was making. My boy brought the smoke to his face and gave a little wave with his hands. The praying, chanting tribesmen moved on to my son. “Go away all the horrible memories stored in my hair, go away.” Using a long, thick feather, the First Nations man gently brushed the smoke over the rest of my hair, my shoulders, then my back. I fought the tears quickly welling up in my eyes as I cupped the smoke into my hands and lifted it to my face and over my head, onto my hair.
My hair helped me hide in shame, but it also made me look more attractive, more feminine. The flashback returned to me when I let my hair hang in front of my face as I was being raped, to hide me. When the tribe member waved the smoky sage with his feather before me, I fought the flashbacks of dark memories my hair held. He said that we should spread the smoke around our heads because hair holds many past memories. He explained that he was going to sing a prayer for each person in our circle and that when he came close, we should draw the sage smoke around our bodies to expel any negative energies lingering from past experiences. The man with the smoky herbs spoke for the first time. It was at least ten minutes until I realized that my boy must be getting bored, but when I looked down, I was surprised to see that he was watching the scene with just as much curiosity as I. I watched, mesmerized by the ritual and the prayer song, the drum and the smoke wafting into the sky. My two-year-old and I stood there in the grass, waiting to see what would happen. I imagined in my bemusement that this First Nations custom might be a mud throwing ceremony where we threw dirt at each other and got all dirty and “smudged!” I was left wondering if I was the only woman feeling this way after being raped.Ī year later I stood in a grassy green field, in a circle and waited for something that someone called an “Indigenous Smudging Ceremony” to begin. Like it was a fungus that had to be chopped away from my body. It felt like I won something when I lost those hairs.įor over a year, it was the oddest feeling to look at my hair like it was some strange, foreign object that absolutely didn’t belong where it was. If there was a knot, I roughly tugged at it until I was left with a clump in the palm of my hand. I’m going to keep my hair.”Īs the weeks passed, I developed a strange compulsive habit of running my hand through my hair until a few strands came out. If I hadn’t been raped, I wouldn’t want to chop my hair off, with all my soul. I only started hating my hair from the point when I woke up after being drug raped. I stared into the mirror and held my hair up between my index and middle finger trying to picture what I would look like if I cut it all off. I promised myself I would keep all my tresses untouched, even though I despised them. I wondered at this strange, new attitude towards my hair as an abuse and rape survivor.Īs I thought more about my strange, new attitude towards my hair, I suddenly understood where it all came from and resolved not to chop it off, the way my whole body screamed for me to. I felt this overwhelming desire to shave it all off. These dirty blonde tresses that made my elementary schoolmates call me “Goldilocks.” But now, I felt like my hair had failed me terribly, somehow. Now, when I looked in the bathroom mirror at this period of my life, my hair rested there lifeless around my shoulders, over my bare breasts. So many men fought me for dominion over my femininity, my sexuality, my power. The father of my children fought me in court then disappeared, my parents fought me for my kids then moved away, the rabbis fought me to stay silent and submissive, and then came the men who roofied and raped me. I was independent for the first time and that meant everything to me.īut unbeknownst to me, soon after I uncovered my hair, liberated my sexuality, my independence, my power, and my freedom-all the monsters came forth to fight me for it. I no longer had to ask for permission to use birth control. I no longer covered my hair with a wig, I no longer covered my elbows or my knees or my collar bones. I no longer had an abusive husband, nor a religion that I adhered to, nor a community to tell me what was right or wrong for me, my body, or my children. I had a lot to process considering that I was a newly divorced single mother with a young daughter and a beautiful baby boy. I stood naked in my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. What Motivates Rape Survivors to Cut Their Hair? This undocumented trend amongst rape survivors is real, and here’s why.