A Dada child was so revered, Yoruba and Igbo believed sacrificed had to be held if their hair were to be cut.
For her album, A Seat At The Table, Solange Knowles wrote “Don’t touch My Hair, when it’s the feeling I wear… Don’t touch my crown, they say the vision I’ve found…”
With that song, Solange Knowles highlighted the black sensitive to hair. For the song’s review, Genius called asking to touch a black woman’s hair “microagression”.
A couple of years earlier, on another song titled I Am Not My Hair, industry veteran, India Arie sang that, “I am not my hair I am not the skin I am not your expectations no… I am the soul that lives within…”
The idea has been established that regardless of terrain, black people attach incredible premium to hair. Asides beings an exhibition of nature’s beauty, it is seen as pride.
Who is a Dada?
playWhy Dada Children were held to high esteem in Nigeria
A Dada is simply a person born with natural dreadlocked hair. Sometimes, they can be long or short.
On July 6, 2018, Face2face released an article by Alice Otchere Johnson. The article brilliantly articulates the historical perception of a “Dada” — to the Yoruba — or “Elena” — to the Igbo — and the esteem, nigh metaphysical fears they were held to in both societies.
I should know. I was born a Dada and I had my hair shaved on my first birthday. According to my late Dad, his and my mother’s family members kicked up incredible fuss about my health and other things when he showed his intentions.
Being who he was, he picked up a pair of scissors and cut the entire thing off. Those family members definitely bought into the esteem deadlocked children are held to.
Johnson further says that, the Igbo version of Dada roughly translates to ‘Child King’ in English
The Igbo version of Dada roughly translates to ‘Child King’ in English.
Of Dada children, she says, “Dada Children are known to be very fragile and must be taken good care of especially in their formative years”
Generally, her take was “Apart from the mother of a Dada, no other person must touch the hair of these children. If any other person touches the hair, he or she must give money to the child or tie a cowry to their locks to prevent them from falling ill”.
Her research also further states her belief that Traditional Nigerian families still revere naturally deadlocked children as gods and offer them to the shrine so the chief priest determine their fate.
While in medieval times and still practiced by some people, special rituals accompany cutting a Dada hair. But in recent times, Christian parents consent to shaving by Catholic Priests.
I do agree with her that “The Trend is changing with the advent of modernization and many of them are now being largely accepted into mainstream societies. Families are also increasingly locking the hair of their children and hence it is generally hard to even distinguish a natural born dada and a made one.”
In the end, what you believe holds a neat autocratic hold over you. My Dada hair was cut 25 years ago and I’m still here — Although, I wouldn’t jinx it.
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