Over the past 10 years, the ear of corn has become a crowd pleaser for women of all cultures. Although it was once worn by children, especially young African and Afro-American girls, the style is common among women of all ages. But many people don’t know that the hairstyle that has saved so many lives has a long and rich history. Furthermore, they don’t realize their role in the freedom struggle that led to the freedom we enjoy today. Ears of corn have long been an aspect of African beauty and life. In many African societies, braid patterns and hairstyles indicate a person’s community, age, marital status, wealth, power, social status and religion. In the Caribbean, this style may be known as a cane row, which stands for “slave who grew sugar cane” rather than corn. The style involves “braiding hair very close to the scalp in a raised single row in a low, hands-up motion, forming a cornrow.”
“Depictions of women with ears of corn have been found in Stone Age paintings of the Tassili Plateau in the Sahara dating back to 3000 BC. date. There are also Native American paintings from 1000 years ago featuring ears of corn as a hairstyle The tradition of sculpting women in ears of corn remains popular throughout Africa, especially in the Horn of Africa and West Africa. African cornrow hairstyle Historically, masculine figures with ears of corn date back to Ethiopia in the early 19th century, where warriors and kings, such as Tewodros II and Yohannes IV, were depicted with ears of corn. ” Now for his role in the transatlantic slave trade: During the Atlantic slave trade, many slaves were forced to shave their hair to be more “hygienic” and to remove it from their culture and identity. But not all enslaved Africans could cut their hair.
“To maintain a neat and tidy appearance,” many people would tightly braid their hair into cornrows and other patterns.
Cornrows were also used by enslaved Africans to move between plantations and their captors’ homes and make maps. It is believed that this practice of using one’s hair as a means of resistance was widespread throughout South America.
Benkos Bioho, a king who was kidnapped from Africa by the Portuguese and escaped slavery, built San Basilio de Palenque, a village in northern Colombia, around the 17th century. This event is best documented in Colombia. In addition to developing his own intelligence network and language, Bioho also came up with the idea for women to create maps and send messages through their cornrows.
According to the article that can be found on the website Edtimes, “Since slaves were rarely given the privilege of writing material, or even if they did have it, such kind of messages or maps getting in the wrong hands could create a lot of trouble for the people in question, cornrows were the perfect way to go about such things.”
Ziomara Asprilla Garcia of Afro-Colombia provided additional information to the Washington Post in the article titled “Afro-Colombian women braid messages of freedom in hairstyles:”
Hair braiding was used to communicate during the slavery era in Colombia. Women, for instance, would braid their hair in a style known as departes to indicate that they wanted to flee. It was braided tightly to the scalp and had buns tied at the top. The braids were thick and tight.
Additionally, some women wore tightly braided, curved hairstyles on their heads. The paths they would take to escape would be represented by the curved braids. They also kept gold and hid seeds in the braids, which ultimately helped them survive after they fled.
Garcia stated with satisfaction that braided hairstyles have returned to Colombia in recent years. However, this is a global reality that is not only evident in Colombia.
