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Eating hairs

Titus Rivas

Titus Rivas

Member
A Dutch mother in Nijmegen has recently shared with me the following experience with her son. When he was about 3 years old he told her he had been a girl. There was an old woman and she give him hairs to eat (sic)and he died. He came to her as a girl.

Does anyone have a clue what this eating of hairs might refer to. Apart from a neurotic habit which has nothing to do with what the boy describes, I've two references so far.
- One to an Indian tribe which gave its warriors bear hairs to eat so that they would incorporate its strength or courage.
- The other one to a folk remedy against rabies. In order to cure the disease after a person would have been bitten by dog suffering from it, that person would be given hairs from that very dog to eat. Maybe something of a crude semi-homeopathic cure.

Titus Rivas
 
Perhaps he meant the other word hares as in rabbits which is often eaten in certain countries.He could have got food poisoning if he ate spoiled meat or a diseased rabbit.Or more sinisterly the rabbit could have been poisoned but the first is more likely.Just a thought

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"Curiousity killed the cat which is why it needs 9 lives."
"All Knowledge is good,only the use to which you put it can be good or evil."
 
Hello!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
The first problem is that the boy is Dutch. He told his mother something like: "Ze gaf me HAREN te eten". In Dutch, the word for hare is haas, and its plural form is hazen. So even in a Dutch situation your idea seems quite interesting, though it is less likely he would have used a plural.
However, the boy would also have told his mother how the old woman gave the hairs to him. His mother concluded from this that his was really somebody's or an animal's hair he was talking about.

Thanks again,

Titus
 
Titus,

It sounds likely it was the hair of the dog cure he might have been referring to; an old woman gave him/her hairs to eat after he/she was bitten by a rabid dog; a three year old wouldn't understand that the past life girl might have been sick before the hairs were given , so he may have thought eating the hair killed her...

S

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"Now it is time that gods came walking out of lived -in Things."

Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, 1875-1926




[This message has been edited by speruoc (edited 12-10-2002).]
 
That's right! That seems quite likely.

Except for the confusion that the boy was 3 years old when he told his mother about his death as a girl. We have no information on his/her age when she/he died.

Thanks for helping me out!

Titus
 
Hopefully this clarification will help the child now. Knowing that it was an inteneded cure, and not the cause of death is important. Otherwise there are betrayal issues there as well. Nice to see these things resolved while they are still young!

Marg
 
I meant to say that he perhaps did understand what was going on when he died as a girl, as we have no information on her age at death.
For instance, she might have been 16.

Best wishes,

Titus
 
To offer a more macabre angle, I know it is still to this day customary in some of India's extremely poor rural district to feed infant girls the 'hairs' of rice grains which will kill them. Girlchildren are viewed as somewhat of a course because the family has to provide a large dowry and 'gain' nothing in return. Thus, to a poor family, having too many girls can spell financial disaster and starvation for everyone.
 
Dear Birgitte,

Thanks a lot for your shocking interpretation!
Can you please provide me with concrete quotes or urls about this sexist 'habit'?

Best wishes,

Titus
 
Titus,

I actually meant confusing for the three year old boy.

When I was a little girl remembering things from my last life, often I saw them with the confusion of a little girl, not the hindsight of an adult.

S

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"Now it is time that gods came walking out of lived -in Things."

Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet, 1875-1926
 
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