Uyghur Girls’ Braids in xinjiang

5 min read

As a traditional grooming habit of the Uygur people wearing braids has along history. The Uygur takes the features of big eyes, bushy eyebrows and long black braids as the standard of the appearance of a beautiful woman.

“The shape of your thick black eyebrows is as exquisite as the niche of Mecca; your long braids swaying in the breeze are as gentle as sacred willows.”

“The girls living near lli River with black eyes and long braids look like blooming pomegranate flowers.”

Both ballads are praising Uygur female’s black eyebrows and long braids.

Uygur women hold the same aesthetic idea that long black braids mean beauty, so they cherish and maintain their own hair carefully. They are all proud of their long hair. Some of them have long braids to their toes, and others want to fulfill their pursuits of aestheticism by adding more hair when they plaited the braids.

The Uygur people’s custom, taking the thick and long braids of women as the beauty, makes local mothers pay careful attention to their daughters’ hair.

The parents would cut their daughters’ hair for many times since they were infants. They believed that the more times to cut the hair, the more black an thicker the hair would be. It’s said that burnt pecans or walnuts can nourish hair, so the parents put them on their daughters’ shaved heads to make sure the new hair would grow thick and black. Besides that, women also practice some kinds of witchcraft to get long, thick and black braids. For instance, if the tip of a braid turned yellow, the girl would ask a teenager to strike off the yellow part in a symbolic act. People believe that the braid will be black and long by these measures.

In the past, the Uygur girls prefer to wear many tiny pigtails. Therefore, someone said the pigtail is a sign of a woman’s age, while others said it’s a symbol of an unmarried woman. In fact, the Uygur girls’ pursuit of beauty is the most important reason why they like pigtails. Pigtails symbolize the exuberant trees and a youthful girl with many pigtails is just as beautiful and graceful as the trees. In general, the number of pigtails should be decided byhow much hair these girls have. The more hair they have, the more pigtails can be plaited, and then the girls are considered as more beautiful. The maximum quantity is up to 41. Instead of many pigtails, the married woman will plait two long braids, covering her forehead with bang and keeping her hair on the temples curving symmetrically forward beside her cheeks. When a Uygur woman has been a mother of two or three children, usually about 30 years old, a ceremony for young married women named “Dzuwan toy”will be held for her, after which, she should plait her bang and hair on the temples into two long braids.

As to the origin of the pigtails that every Uygur girl has on her head, there is a legend among the Uygur people: long long ago, there was a country around which there was the vast desert. To control the desert and transform it into a beautiful paradise, the young prince went to the All-mighty for help.

However, to find the All-mighty, the prince had to kill a yellow snake demonthat ate people. The prince walked in the desert for over a month. The other day, when he saw a willow in the presence of him, he pitched a tent to have a rest under the tree. In the night, however, he tossed and turned restlessly. After a while, he suddenly heard a terrible noise, so he walked outside the tent and raised his head. Here came a piece of colorful cloud from the sky near the western horizon, and he and his horse with green bristle were brought to the sky eastward. After a long time floating, they finally landed beside a lake where scenery, the horse bowed its head and touched his leg, and then it shook its bristle and said,”My lord, happiness is coming to you. When the sun comes out,3 ladies will go to the lake to take a bath. After they take off their clothes and wash themselves in the lake, go and hide the green coat at once. When the owner asks for that coat, you shall ask her to be your wife. If she agrees, you and your country will be blessed.”With these words, the horse rose to the sky and flew away.A few minutes later,3 swans flew from the sky and landed beside the lake, becoming 3 beautiful ladies. All of them had many pigtails on their heads, dangling in the wind and glittering in the sun. How beautiful they were! The red-coat lady had 18 pigtails on her head, the yellow-coat lady 17and the green-coat one 16. They talked and laughed, taking off their clothesand jumping into the water. The prince immediately took the green coat away and hid himself into the reeds. When the ladies finished bathing and went ashore to take on their clothes, the girl with 16 pigtails could not find her coat anyway. It had been too late, so the other two ladies transformed into swansand flew into the sky. When the two ladies flew away, the prince came out of the reeds and timidly told the left lady that it was he who had taken her coat.

The girl angrily swung her pigtails and asked who he was and why he stole her coat. Therefore, the prince told the lady his purpose of coming here from his desert country. The lady smiled and said,”It’s my brother, the horse, who asked you to do that. Then,I will be your wife. However, it’s impossible to find the All-mighty. As long as you are determined to control the sandy desert, you just kill the yellow snake demon and I will solve all the other problems afterwards.

After a long and arduous journey of one month and a half, the prince arrived at the demon’s cave and bravely killed the yellow snake demon, taking the swan lady back to his desert country. The swan lady redeemed her promise and helped the prince turn the desert country into a green land and garden.

From then on, people of this country lived a happy life. After that, the nativesfollow the dressing of the swan lady and add a pigtail to a girl’s head every year when she grows older, so as to commemorate the happiness that the swan lady had brought them.

For a bunch of reasons such as the gradually accelerating pace of life, the change in people’s aesthetic values and so on, now it is hard to see a Uygur girl with long pigtails in the city. But in the vast countryside and the pasturing areas, the Uygur women, especially the old women still have long pigtails so far.