In the ancient world, long hair and long-haired wigs were the province of aristocracy. Sumerians and Persians powdered, curled, crimped and dyed their hair, and the horse-borne barbarians who overran Europe in the Middle Ages wore long fl owing locks and beards.
In Africa, where hair frequently denoted sex and status, the Massai males wore their hair waist-length, whereas, women and noncombatants shaved their heads.
Chinese and Japanese women traditionally wore long hair, possibly under a bandeau or worn as a knot, which might be decorated. Unmarried girls signified their status with long plaits. In Japan, the introduction of pomade in the seventeenth century led to the familiar sweep, arranged with combs, bars, ribbons, and ornamental hairpins, which revealed the nape of the neck.
In Muslim cultures, the hair was and still is frequently concealed in public. In many parts of the world a henna rinse is common. In the fifteenth century, fashionable ladies of northern Europe plucked their hairline to make their foreheads seem higher and scraped their hair back under an elaborate pointed or wired headdress.
In the twenty-first century, when hair fashions are so driven by celebrity, long hair in the West is associated with young females and males of an artistic bent. Unlike the rebellious 1960s and 1970s, long hair is now uncommon as a male phenomenon.
