Red Hair, Thomas Jefferson and the Lunacy of Racism

I've also just finished reading Sex and Punishment: Four Thousand Years of Judging Desire by Eric Berkowitz, another fascinating book. This time red hair popped up in relation to Thomas Jefferson and the status of mixed race people in the days of slavery.

"Thomas Jefferson fathered a son, Eston, with his one-quarter-black slave, Sally Hemmings. Eston had fair skin, freckles, and red hair, but his background was evidently not black enough to qualify him as "black"; in the early nineteenth century, Virginia law declared people white if they were less than one-quarter black. Nevertheless, the son of a slave was the son of a slave-Eston was only freed on the instruction of Jefferson's will, and lived his life out as a white man in the North. His full brother, Madison Hemmings (born James Madison Hemmings), had no such luck. Though he shared an identical lineage with Eston, and had also been freed in Jefferson's will, Madison had "bronze" skin, which seems to have been enough to condemn him to life as a black man. By law, Madison should have been treated the same as his brother, but no one could accept that someone with Madison's appearance could be considered white, even if his father had been president of the United States."

Red Hair and Witchery

I've just finished reading The Secret of History of Lucifer by Lynn Picknett, one of my favourite esoteric authors. Perhaps unsurprisingly red hair crops up.

"The Egyptians hated anything red, as can be seen from an invocation to Isis: 'Free me from all red things'. In his alter ego as Typhon, Set was called 'the red-skinned one'."

And;

"Women with dissimilar eyes or red hair were instantly recognised as devil worshippers: apart from the symbolism discussed previously, perhaps this was because redheads usually have freckles, and these were often taken as 'witch marks'."

There was also this interesting little nugget about hair in general;

"Saint Paul ruled that women's heads should be covered in church 'because of the angels', for there was a real fear that female hair attracted daemones[.]"

Louis (or Louise) II of Hungary

Oh, and I also came across this painting of a red-haired royal.

It was painted by Bernhard Strigel and is supposedly of Louis II, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia. This surprised me, as on first inspection I just assumed it to be a woman. Either way the person portrayed is undoubtedly red-haired.

More Red Hair in Portrait Paintings

Following my last post I've been looking at portrait paintings from the Tudor period for signs of red hair. These are the fruits.

Mary Tudor, Queen of France

Mary was the daughter of Henry VII and younger sister of Henry VIII. She married King Louis XII of France. A Venetian ambassador described her as "a paradise - tall, slender, grey-eyed, possessing an extreme pallor." According to Wikipedia she "wore her glorious silken red-gold hair flowing loose to her waist."

Joan of Austria

Joan was the first wife of Grand Duke Francesco de Medici. I couldn't find a mention of her hair colour, but in this painting she looks pretty ginger.

Joanna the Mad

Just discovered another royal ginger hoe - Joanna the Mad aka Joanna of Castile. She was married to Philip the Handsome and reigned over the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. She was also the last monarch of the House of Trastamara. According to Wiki her hair was between reddish-blonde and auburn.

Scarlet Panacea

I came across this in John Aubrey's Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme;

"Johannes Medicos. who lived and wrot[e] in the time of Ed[ward] 2, and was Physi[cian] to that king, gives an account of his [curing] the Prince of [the] Smallpox (a distemper but then lately known in England) by ordering his bed, his room, and his attendants to be all in scarlet, and imputes [the] cure in great measure to the [virtue] of [the] colour."

A Knot of Amber Hair

Back in September I mentioned that I was going to read Christopher Marlowe's play 'Tamburlaine the Great' after discovering that he (Tamburlaine) had red hair. Now I've finally read it.

When I started I didn't expect to actually find anything red hair related, but I'd wanted to read it anyway and the slightest thought that rouge locks might pop up in it somewhere pushed me to finally do it. Anyway, I was pleased and surprised to find that a mention of Tamburlaine's hair colour did pop up.

The character Menaphon describes his appearance as thus;

"His lofty brows in folds do figure death,
And in their smoothness amity and life;
About them hangs a knot of amber hair,
Wrapped in curls, as fierce Achilles' was,
On which the breath of Heaven delights to play,
Making it dance with wanton majesty."

The comparison to the red-haired Achilles makes it doubly pleasing.