- IJ and MD
115: Red hair - Oxidisation or Melanesian influence?
Below is a section showing a number of Maori heads all with black hair. How, keep in mind that all 6 of the heads shown here have all passed through the same process after death...exactly the same process. Those on the second row are a series of redheaded heads.
Asking someone in the Otago Museum that once had a redheaded preserved head, (I even recall seeing it myself) I was told that over time, changes occur which make all human hair turn red. I was told that it was oxidization that caused it and the whole issue was generally brushed off. Has anyone else noticed that there are preserved heads where the hair is a perfect dark black? It would be hard for the musuem to explain that one with the same argument they presented for why all heads turn red over time.
The fact is, I seen a redheaded preserved head. Old reports from first contact Europeans said there were redheads among Maori and even Maori themselves say there were redheads. There are no redheads in the Pacific with the exception of some areas of Melanesia and they all had frizzy hair. That red had to come from somewhere. We believe it came from interbreeding of the Polynesians with the small Melanesian population already here. Or maybe from a race here long before? But you make your mind up where this gene came from, we won’t say it's a fact because it cannot be proved beyond doubt (yet). But there will some element of suggestion for many theories.
What is undeniable, is that these heads that went through exactly the same process as all the others, yet are markedly are different in hair colour which doesn't match the offical explanation of all hair truning red after death.
But DNA of a hair sample might prove very interesting.
