Abstract
Fuyao 服妖, or “ornamentation anomaly,” is a historical category of disaster (anomaly) that emerged during the Han period. It is a rich example of the perceived connection between sumptuary transgression and political disorder in the Chinese cosmological and historical traditions. Due to the importance of hairstyle and headgear in the performance of state ritual ideology and hierarchical stratification, discussions of hairstyle and hair ornamentation represent an especially intriguing incarnation of apprehension about improper personal appearance. The present paper approaches an understanding of the emergence and uses (historical and narrative) of fuyao mainly in the Han through Tang period through an examination of fuyao examples involving hairstyle and headgear. An analysis of hair-related fuyao within the rubrics provided by appearance or demeanor (mao 貌) as a moral and political marker and the ritual significance of headgear in the Chinese tradition indicates the use of fuyao as a medium of historical evaluation that becomes interwoven, in theory if not in practice, with the creation, promulgation, and subversion of culturally defined identities.
Keywords
hairstyle, headgear, fuyao, guan, sumptuary regulations, Treatise on the Five Phases
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