Bordebalay, cornrows, hundidito, bantu knots, loose braids, little chignons, afro, the finger coils, these are many of the hairstyles that Afro-Colombian, Raizal and Palenquera girls wear and weave on each other as part of self-care practices and that’s because hairstyles and the Mata ‘e Pelo are one of the main approaches to Afro-identity.

In the process of reclaiming Afro aesthetics, we have learned that Black history does not begin with enslavement, but that through enslavement an attempt was made to interrupt our evolution. Quoting the Palenquero folk rap group Kombilesa Mí “Hairstyles are a form of expression that helped during enslavement, they drew the perfect path that has led Black people to liberation”. In fact, the ancestors describe how hairstyles became the strategy for marking escape routes on the heads of girls, teenagers, and women. In other words, they were the ones who designed these escape maps based mainly on knowledge of the territory, its rivers, streams, canals, and trees among other things.

Now, hair styling also has a deep connection with the spirituality of Afro-descendant people. For some, it is related to the closeness that hair has to our thoughts, as well as to religion, the cosmovision and the moment of complicity that occurs between the hairdresser and the person being styled. This generates a space of intimacy and trust, of dialogue, of the transfer of ancestral and traditional knowledge.