dark winter is created, when nothing grows until the sun is reborn. Father Christmas, whose dwelling place is the North Pole, represents the young sun in this festival, as may be seen by his red clothes (his white beard symbolizes snow, rather that old age). In ancient Egypt, sun worship was highly developed, and either the Phoenicians or the Viking may have been those who had brought it to America (s. below).
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But what has all this to do with golden hair? In many beliefs human hair is considered to hold a person’s physical and spiritual power. Biblical Samson (Shimshon in Hebrew, whose name is connected with the sun – Shemesh), called “the hero”, lost his great power when his head was shaven of his magnificent hair; only when it started to grow back, he was able to destroy a whole temple by felling its pillars with his bare hands. The combination of golden hair, then, represents divine superiority, power and control.
The tints of gold can change from the fairest blond hair to the darkest red, and in spite of the visible difference between them, they all symbolize the connection with the Sun as a supreme deity, and those spiritual features attached to it. That is why, even in cultures where black and brown hair are considered beautiful, the lighter colors are thought to express special qualities. The Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl – the initiator of the Kon Tiki and the Ra trips, from South America to Polynesia and from North Africa to America – has mentioned a myth, told among the black haired native Americans, saying that the most prominent American cultures (Maya, Inca and Aztec) were created by white-skinned, bearded people; these people, they say, came from an unknown