Some authors suggests meanings and translations are misinterpreted. Other sources suggests they were not dreadlocks but long tresses of loose curly hair. History Antiquity Young boxers with long dreadlocks depicted on a fresco from Akrotiri (modern Santorini, Greece) 1600–1500 BCE. Locks of matted hair is translated in several languages. The word dreadlocks refer to matted locks of hair. Tharps, hair historian and coauthor of Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America, 'the modern understanding of dreadlocks is that the British, who were fighting Mau Mau (during colonialism in the late 19th century), encountered the warriors' locs and found them 'dreadful', thus coining the term 'dreadlocks'.' However, Rastafari did not develop in Jamaica until the 1930s. Some authors trace the term to the Rastafarians, coining it as a reference to their wearing the hairstyle as a sign of their 'dread' (or fear) of God. The history of the name 'dreadlocks' is unclear. Cree chief Pitikwahanapiwiyin with locked hair, 1885ĭreadlocks, also known as dreads or locs, are rope-like strands of hair formed by matting which is done by not combing the hair and allowing the hair to matt naturally or by twisting hair and over time the twisted hair will form into matted locs. Not to be confused with Lock of hair or Lovelock (hair).
