Book Review: The Story of Lauli’i, A Daughter of Samoa
Have you ever heard of a ‘beauty lock’? A ’sope’? Apparently back in Lauli’i’s time, it was fashionable for children to keep their entire heads shaven except for a small section of hair - at the front of the head or on either side above the ears - which they would dye red with burnt coral. According to Lauli’i:
“…the girl who had the reddest ’sope’ attracted the most favorable attention, and incidentally reflected credit upon her mother…”
I had no idea.
But my own mother can verify this ’sope’ story. Apparently they were still shaving children’s heads like this when she was a child back in the 1940s and ’50s. Mum says the idea was to make them look like those red things on the top of roosters’ heads.
Riiiiight.