IN PRAISE OF TASSELS AND FRINGE
NOT THE ARTICLE I STARTED TO WRITE BUT, THE MORE YOU KNOW
Since antiquity, tassels and fringe have been used as adornments and embellishments in garments and all manner of other household and religious items. However, these seemingly decorative-only additions were—and continue to be—used for spiritually protective purposes, as well.
Reaching all of the way back to Mesopotamia, Egypt, and other parts of the Arab world, including Greece and Rome, tassels and fringe were commonly employed as apotropaic devices to protect against witches, spirits, and demons and to avoid the gaze of the evil eye. Tassels and fringe were used to fascinate, cause confusion, and to redirect attention and envy onto something other than the person or thing to be protected. Nearly all types of garments and even some accessories were adorned with tassels and/or fringe, and this was especially true of those worn by children, royalty, and religious leaders. In fact, not surprisingly, King Tut was found to be wearing a necklace of tassels when his body was discovered, thousands of years later.
In the Torah (Deuteronomy 22:12 and Numbers 15:37-41), the Lord commanded the Israelites to wear tassels/fringe, called tzitzit, on their garments as a reminder to keep His commandments. Besides being a constant reminder, tzitzit are also protective because if one is keeping their mind on God, it is much harder for evil to gain a foothold in one’s life. In addition, I would say that the tzitzit would also signal to others—people and evil entities—that a given individual is divinely protected and not someone with which to trifle. Garments, with tzitzit in each corner, continue to be commonly worn among the Jewish faithful in modern times, as well.
In the fashion world, fringe on a dress is used to create motion and to cover bodily flaws, because the fringe makes it difficult to see a true outline of the person’s figure. Fringe is used in a similar way in the metaphysical world—it distracts and confuses the eye as to the exact form and location of the person or thing it is meant to protect. Magically speaking, it’s difficult to imitate or connect to something when the picture is incomplete. Similarly, fringe is often found on head pieces, where it is sewn so that it hangs in front of the face of the wearer. Such headgear is used by shamans and other spiritual workers as a way of disguising themselves when in ritual, when visiting the realm of the Dead, or when participating in other pathworking. This spiritual protection is in addition to that which is provided by covering the head, itself.
And while the following is something that is merely tangentially related, I have noted in my studies that many depictions of the Orishas show their faces obscured by fringe, seemingly as a way of masking their true form, either as a matter of respect or indicating such information is a secret or unknowable (like the “unknowable face of God”).
From the pom-pom on a child’s woolen-knit hat, to that same child’s graduate mortarboard tassel, to the fringe on the draperies, table cloth, and the pillows—all of these little adornments that make things a little “extra” for us—they are all very much a part of our everyday lives. Though we may not pay them much mind, tassels and fringe have got us covered. In antiquity as well as now, they are still holding it down for us—both materially and metaphysically—whether we recognize it or not.
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