Summary

• In the early fifteenth century, hair served as a carrier of messages in most West African societies, and one Dutch explorer in Benin noted sixteen different hairstyles, each marking a combination of gender and status (Byrd and Tharps, Hair Story)
• Sahara rock paintings that appear to show cornrows are dated as far back as 3000 BC, though the reading is an interpretation. The word cornrow itself is first recorded in America in 1769 (Wikipedia, "Cornrows")
• Rwanda's amasunzu came in more than 30 styles, lost ground to foreign styles from the 1960s, and is now being revived by young artists (Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy)
• The Himba of northern Namibia, about 50,000 people, still use hairstyle to show age and social status (Wikipedia, "Himba people")

This list is not ranked. It runs from west to south, and the dates show the earliest evidence cited here, not the origin of a style. Meanings varied by community and period, so each entry reports what its sources record, not a universal rule.

Selected Details About Each Hairstyle on the List

1. Cornrows, or Irun Didi (Nigeria and beyond)

Cornrows are braids worked flat to the scalp in raised rows, and the Yoruba call them kolese or irun didi (Wikipedia). Depictions of what appear to be cornrows are dated as far back as 3000 BC in Sahara rock paintings and about 2000 BC in the Horn of Africa, and a young girl's remains in Nubia, wearing cornrows, are dated to 550–750 AD. Across Africa, their patterns could express religion, kinship, status and age, and long braiding sessions passed values between generations. Tradition holds that cornrows carried escape routes during slavery, a story Wikipedia classes as folklore.

2. Irun Kiko (Nigeria)

Irun kiko is the Yoruba name for wrapping sections of hair in thread of wool, cotton, or nylon. The Igbo call it isi owu, the Ga of Ghana akweley waabii, and Swahili speakers nywele (Wikipedia). Threaded or wrapped braids are attested in West Africa since at least the 18th century (Wikipedia). In Yoruba culture people braided their hair to send messages to the gods, and a 20th-century study found newborns' heads were often shaved to mark their arrival from the spirit world (Wikipedia). The photographer J.D. 'Okhai Ojeikere recorded nearly 1,000 Nigerian women's hairstyles from 1968 over more than 40 years, treating them as living sculpture (Fondation Cartier).

3. Fulani Crest Braids (West Africa and the Sahel)

Young Fula women wore their hair in richly ornamented crests of varying height and thickness, decorated with cowries, beads, small gold rings and coins, and foreign silver coins entered the jewellery from the mid-eighteenth century (Horniman Museum). In Fula culture, braiding expresses identity, heritage and social status, and in Senegal Fula women decorated styled hair with beads and accessories (Wikipedia). The "Fulani braids" sold in salons today borrow from this tradition.

4. Dansinkran (Ghana)

Dansinkran is a short cropped style with the edges dyed black, worn by Asante queen mothers and other royal women (Wikipedia). In Akan communities, it is reserved for queens and priestesses (Graphic Online), and the Met links it to a plaiting technique associated with royal women (Met Museum). Its origin is disputed. One account says it was introduced to mourn the Asante dead of the Katamanso War of 1826, while another says the name is a corruption of "dancing crown", a colonial governor's phrase for Queen Mother Nana Kwaadu Yiadom II's hairstyle when she danced adowa around 1935 (Explore Virtual Collections).

5. Tumburu (DR Congo)

Mangbetu ruling-class women wore the tumburu, a flared coiffure reinforced with reeds, to accentuate an elongated head shaped by binding in infancy, which the Mangbetu considered the ideal of beauty (Met Museum). The custom of skull elongation, lipombo, was a status symbol among the ruling classes at the start of the twentieth century, was later copied by neighbours, and was outlawed by the Belgian government around mid-century (Smithsonian). Royal women wrapped their heads with rope and wove their hair into a conical basket structure, as shown on vessels made between about 1900 and 1930 (Carlos Museum).

6. Amasunzu (Rwanda)

Amasunzu is a crest style, often described as crescent-shaped, worn by Rwandan men and by unmarried women of about 18–20 and older as a sign of marriageable age (Wikipedia). Men who did not wear it were viewed with suspicion until the 20th century. The Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy records more than 30 styles, worn by men and girls of any social category, and notes that the style gradually lost ground to foreign ones from the 1960s while young artists now revive it (Google Arts & Culture).

7. Shuruba (Ethiopia and Eritrea)

Shuruba, the traditional braids and cornrows of Ethiopia, includes regional styles such as the Albaso and Gilbach of Tigray. Such styles identified a person's religion, kingship, age, ethnicity, and social and marital status, and in Tigray finished braids may carry gold, silver, or copper jewellery (Ethiopian Business Review). Emperors Tewodros II (1818–1868) and Yohannes IV (1837–1889) are depicted wearing braids (OkayAfrica). After Tewodros's death at Maqdala in 1868, British forces took locks of his hair, and a British museum later announced it would return them to Ethiopia (Scroll.in).

8. Moran Braids (Kenya)

Maasai morans wear long hair coated with red ochre and oil, red being the sacred colour of the Maasai (Africanews). Morans are men of about 18 to 26 who hold the status for roughly a decade. At Eunoto, a five-day ceremony that promotes them to young elder, their mothers shave their heads, and in theory they can marry only after it, though some no longer wait. Milk, which signifies life for the Maasai, is used to lubricate the heads before shaving (People Daily).

9. Ozondato and Erembe (Namibia)

The Himba, about 50,000 people in Namibia's Kunene Region, coat their skin and hair plaits with otjize, a paste of butterfat and ochre, and their hairstyle and jewellery indicate age and social status (Wikipedia). A young girl wears two forward plaits called ozondato, the form of which is set by her father's clan, while a single man wears a plait at the back of his head called ondatu, and married men wear turbans (The Namibian). After puberty, girls wear many plaits, and a woman married for about a year, or with a child, wears the erembe, a sheepskin headpiece with many streams of braided hair shaped with otjize.

10. Isicoco and Isicholo (South Africa)

A Zulu married man wore the isicoco, a head-ring made by stitching his hair into a ring of sedge, covering it with a gummy substance and polishing it (Colenso, 1855, in the Dictionary of South African English). Regiments of married men needed the king's permission to take wives and wear it (Walker, 1951, in the Dictionary). In the early 19th century, married Zulu women shaved their heads, leaving a cone-shaped topknot coloured red, and a wide circular headdress called isicholo replaced it in the late 19th century. Many Zulu women still wear it at special events as a sign of married status (Minneapolis Institute of Art).

Quick Answers to Commonly Asked Questions About this Topic

Did African hairstyles really carry meanings?

Yes. Byrd and Tharps write that hairstyles indicated marital status, age, religion, ethnic identity, wealth, and rank in West African societies. Meanings differed from one community and period to the next, and the entries above record what each source reports for one people, not a rule for the continent.

Did cornrows carry escape maps during slavery?

The sources used here treat it as folklore. Wikipedia attributes the story to Black folklore and to Benkos Biohó in Colombia, and the documented evidence for cornrows in Africa concerns identity, status, and social ritual.

Which of these styles is the oldest?

Cornrows, going by rock art dated as far back as 3000 BC. That reading is an interpretation, since the paintings show what appear to be cornrows. None of the other nine has a documented origin that old in the sources used here.

Are these hairstyles still worn?

Some are. Himba women keep the erembe, Maasai morans took part in Eunoto in August 2023, Zulu women wear the isicholo at events, and amasunzu is being revived. Mangbetu lipombo ended around mid-century after it was outlawed.

Why do some styles have conflicting origin stories?

Because many were passed on by custom, not written down. Dansinkran shows this: one account ties it to mourning after the 1826 Katamanso War, another to a name given around 1935.

Key Sources

Other sources are linked in the text. All pages accessed in October 2026.

• Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black Hair in America (sample text, Library of Congress). https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy1401/00045761-s.html
• Wikipedia, "Cornrows." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornrows
• Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy, "Traditional Hairstyles of Rwanda" (Google Arts & Culture). https://artsandculture.google.com/story/xwWRUcIyLjxKcg
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, "Figurative Harp (Domu)" (Mangbetu tumburu). https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319553
• Africanews, "Hundreds of young Maasai in Kenya undergo rite of passage to adulthood" (21 August 2023). https://africanews.com/2023/08/21/hundreds-of-young-maasai-in-kenya-undergo-right-of-passage-to-adulthood/