There is an old Chinese saying, "If the body is skinned, the parents who receive it dare not destroy it." In the eyes of the ancients, a person's body and hair are given by their parents and cannot be damaged at will, which is also the beginning of filial piety. So before the Qing Dynasty, both men and women had flowing hair, and they hardly shaved their hair for the rest of their lives.
However, long hair also has an obvious disadvantage, that is, it is difficult to care for, and it is very time-consuming to wash it once, so, in ancient China, how often did people wash their hair? How were the braids of the Qing Dynasty cleaned?
The history of Chinese hair washing can be started from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, which is described in the "Poetry Classic: Picking Green": "In the end of the dynasty, picking green, not making a profit, giving a song bureau, and returning to Mu with thin words." ”
To the effect that I had picked a handful of the trees I had picked one morning, but my hair was disheveled, so I hurried home to bathe and comb.
By the time of the Qin and Han dynasties, the state had already had clear regulations, stipulating that "three days of bathing, five days of bathing, violators will be punished". In this regard, the government also launched a "bath" holiday, that is, a day off every five days, so that the ** people can take a good bath on this day.
There is a record in Hailu Broken Things: "Han Law, five days and one day, give a rest, and be able to return to rest and Mu to confess." ”
At that time, it was common for the upper class to wash their hair with the juice made from chestnut rice, which was said to have the effect of controlling oil and dirt, and also smoothing the hair. Ordinary families wash their hair with soapy rice, plant ash or rice washing water.
By the time of the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the various ethnic groups continued to merge, and the social atmosphere became tolerant and open, perhaps under the influence of the nomads, people became more and more uninhibited, indulgent and capricious, and no longer paid too much attention to bathing.
For example, Ji Kang among the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest, the eight-foot-tall "No. 1 beautiful man in the Wei and Jin Dynasties" with a face like a crown of jade, admitted in "Breaking Friendship with Shan Juyuan": I often don't wash my hair for ten days and half a month, unless it's really itchy, I will never bathe, unless I can't hold it anymore, I will never get up and go to the toilet. Sometimes there are so many lice on my body that I can't even sit still.
There is also Wang Meng, the former prime minister of Qin, because this person has a lot of lice on his body, so that when discussing the affairs of the world with Huan Wen, he can only talk while catching lice, and there is an idiom for this reason "talk about lice".
It was not until the Tang Dynasty that the atmosphere of "not washing hair" was finally improved, when the state clearly stipulated that ** need to wash their hair every ten days, if civilians do not wash their hair, unkempt all day long, and face a fine if the circumstances are serious.
In the Ming Dynasty, the first holiday was greatly shortened, and there were only three days off a year, namely one day on the winter solstice, one day for the New Year and one day for the emperor's birthday, so there was little time to wash hair and bathe.
However, compared with the people of the Qing Dynasty, they were still happy, because the men of the Qing Dynasty kept long braids, and every time they washed, they had to take apart the braids and wash them, and they had to tie them up after washing, so the Qing Dynasty people were not very willing to wash their hair, and their hair was naturally dirty and oily, so they also smoked and vomited many foreign missionaries.
As we all know, the Manchus are a typical nomadic people, living on nomadism and fishing and hunting all year round, and in order to facilitate riding and shooting in the mountains and forests, Manchu men basically do not have long flowing hair, but short braids in front of the forehead, and long hair at the back of the head is coiled around the head.
After the establishment of the Later Jin regime, in order to distinguish it from the Ming Dynasty, Nurhachi stipulated that the Qing soldiers should have a unified hairstyle, shaving off all the hair in front, leaving only a small handful of hair behind the top of the head, and knotting it into long braids.
In 1645, after the Qing soldiers entered the customs, Dolgon issued the "Hair Shaving Order" and the "Yi Obey Order", stipulating: "All the officials and people of the country (male) shall shave their hair" and "the officials and people shall follow the system of their own dynasty", so as to stabilize the political power and suppress the Han subjects.
As mentioned above, the Han people have always paid attention to the hair and skin of the body, and letting the Han people break their hair is equivalent to cutting off their heads, so as soon as these two orders were issued, the Han officials and people across the country were angry and rebelled against the Qing Dynasty, but it attracted violent suppression by the Manchus.
This struggle lasted for 37 years, but it was clear that the Manchu rulers had the last laugh.
After that, the surviving Han people basically shaved their hair and kept braids, and the Han people who resolutely refused to shave their hair and change their clothes were either beheaded, or left China, or returned to the mountains and wilderness, and practiced with their hair on.
Of course, the braids of the Qing Dynasty people are not static, at the beginning, people still kept a penny-sized "money rattail braid", and then evolved into an oxtail-sized "oxtail braid", and finally the kind we see in the TV series, a braid with half of the hair, commonly known as "yin and yang head".
However, as the hair area increases, the braids become thicker and thicker, so it is quite troublesome to wash your hair once. In addition, it takes time to re-braid the hair after it has dried naturally, and this kind of work usually has to be helped by someone else.
According to records, in the middle and late Qing Dynasty, the cycle of washing the hair of the royal family was about a month, and the loss of washing one hair was huge, they would not only smear egg whites on the hair, sprinkle sesame seeds, but the Empress Dowager Cixi would even use high-quality bird's nest to soak the hair.
Compared with the aristocracy, the ordinary person's hair washing cycle will only be longer, basically only once a year. Because ordinary people work all year round and have no spare time to deal with braids, and the weather is cold in winter, it is easy to get wind chill after washing their hair for a day, so they generally only wash their hair in summer.
Washing your hair only once a year gives you an idea of how smelly it is, and it is also covered with lice, which makes it look dirty and greasy, so many foreign missionaries vomit it.
In the late Qing Dynasty, an English woman named Marisa went to China as a missionary, and soon after arriving in the mainland, Marisa met some local merchants, and in order to fulfill the friendship of the landlords, these merchants also warmly invited Marisa to dinner.
However, when Marisa saw the braids on the merchants' heads, she found that their braids were covered in oil and dandruff, and when she looked closer, she could see lice in the braids.
It was the hottest time, and as soon as the sun broke, the strange smell in the braids was completely dissipated, and Marisa only smelled it lightly, and vomited on the spot, and had no appetite to eat.
In 1911, the Wuchang Uprising broke out in China, and under the impact of new ideas, the cutting of long braids began to be used as a form of struggle against the Qing Dynasty. The following year, ** introduced the relevant policy of removing braids and making them easy to wear, and since then, ugly and dirty braids have been submerged in history along with the Qing Dynasty.
So, what do you think about the braids of the Qing Dynasty?