Red hair

This article is about people with red hair, who are sometimes called "redheads". For the film, see Red Hair (film). For other uses, see Redhead (disambiguation).

Man with red hair
Woman with red hair

Red hair occurs naturally in 1–2% of the human population. It occurs more frequently (2–6%) in people of northern or western European ancestry, and less frequently in other populations. Red hair appears most commonly in people with two copies of a recessive allele on chromosome 16 which produces an altered version of the MC1R protein.

Red hair varies from a deep burgundy through burnt orange to bright copper. It is characterized by high levels of the reddish pigment pheomelanin and relatively low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. The term redhead has been in use since at least 1510.[1] It is associated with fair skin color, lighter eye colors (gray, blue, green, and hazel), freckles, and sensitivity to ultraviolet light.[2]

Cultural reactions have varied from ridicule to admiration; many common stereotypes exist regarding redheads and they are often portrayed as fiery-tempered.

Geographic distribution

Historical

Woman with red hair, Papua New Guinea. Melanesians have a significant incidence of fair hair, caused by a genetic mutation different from European blond and red hair.[3]

Several accounts by Greek writers mention redheaded people. A fragment by the poet Xenophanes describes the Thracians as blue-eyed and red-haired.[4]

In Asia, red hair has been found among the ancient Tocharians, who occupied the Tarim Basin in what is now the northwesternmost province of China. Caucasian Tarim mummies have been found with red hair dating to the 2nd millennium BC.[5]

Red hair is also found amongst Polynesians, and is especially common in some tribes and family groups. In Polynesian culture red hair has traditionally been seen as a sign of descent from high-ranking ancestors and a mark of rulership.[6][7]

Modern

Mexican boxer Saúl Álvarez nicknamed "El Canelo" (in English, "Cinnamon") after his reddish hair

North and West Europe

Today, red hair is most commonly found at the northern and western fringes of Europe;[8] it is associated particularly with the people located in the British Isles (although Victorian era. Ethnographers consider the Udmurt people of the Volga to be "the most red-headed men in the world").[9] Redheads are common among Celtic[8] and Germanic peoples.

In Scotland, 10% of the population have red hair and approximately 35% carry the recessive redhead gene.[10] In Ireland as many as 10% of the population have red, auburn, or strawberry blond hair.[11] It is thought that up to 46% of the Irish population carry the recessive redhead gene. A 1956 study of hair color amongst British army recruits also found high levels of red hair in Wales and the English Border counties.[12]

Mediterranean

The Berber populations of Morocco[13] and northern Algeria have occasional redheads. Red hair frequency is especially significant among the Riffians from Morocco and Kabyles from Algeria, whose frequence reaches 10%[14] and 4%,[15][16] respectively. The Queen of Morocco, Lalla Salma wife of king Mohammed VI, has red hair. Abd ar-Rahman I also had red hair, his mother being a Christian Berber slave.

Red hair is also found amongst the Ashkenazi Jewish populations.[17] In European culture, prior to the 20th century, red hair was often seen as a stereotypically Jewish trait: during the Spanish Inquisition, all those with red hair were identified as Jewish.[18] In Italy, red hair was associated with Italian Jews, and Judas was traditionally depicted as red-haired in Italian and Spanish art.[19] Writers from Shakespeare to Dickens would identify Jewish characters by giving them red hair.[20] The stereotype that red hair is Jewish remains in parts of Eastern Europe and Russia.[21]

Asia

In Asia, genetic red hair is rare, but can be found in the Levant (Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and Palestine), in Turkey, in Caucasia, in Northern Kazakhstan, and among Indo-Iranians. The use of henna on hair and skin for various reasons is common in Asia. When henna is used on hair it dyes the hair to different shades of red.[22][23][24]

A Uyghur girl in Kashgar, China's Xinjiang region, with red hair

Americas, Oceania and South Africa

Emigration from Eurasia and North Africa added to the population of red haired humans in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Africa. In the United States, it is estimated that 2–6% of the population has red hair. This would give the U.S. the largest population of redheads in the world, at 6 to 18 million, compared to approximately 650,000 in Scotland and 420,000 in Ireland.

Biochemistry and genetics

A close-up view of red hair

The pigment pheomelanin gives red hair its distinctive color. Red hair has far more of the pigment pheomelanin than it has of the dark pigment eumelanin.

The genetics of red hair, discovered in 1997, appear to be associated with the melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R), which is found on chromosome 16. Red hair is associated with fair skin color because low concentrations of eumelanin throughout the body of those with red hair caused by a MC1R mutation can cause both. The lower melanin concentration in skin confers the advantage that a sufficient concentration of important Vitamin D can be produced under low light conditions. However, when UV-radiation is strong (as in regions close to the equator) the lower concentration of melanin leads to several medical disadvantages, such as a higher risk of skin cancer.

The MC1R recessive variant gene that gives people red hair and non-tanning skin is also associated with freckles, though it is not uncommon to see a redhead without freckles. Eighty percent of redheads have an MC1R gene variant,[2] and the prevalence of these alleles is highest in Scotland and Ireland.

Red hair can originate from several changes on the MC1R-gene. If one of these changes is present on both chromosomes then the respective individual is likely to have red hair. This type of inheritance is described as an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. Even if both parents do not have red hair themselves, both can be carriers for the gene and have a redheaded child.

Genetic studies of dizygotic (fraternal) twins indicate that the MC1R gene is not solely responsible for the red hair phenotype; unidentified modifier genes exist, making variance in the MC1R gene necessary, but not always sufficient, for red hair production.[25]

Genetics

The alleles Arg151Cys, Arg160Trp, Asp294His, and Arg142His on MC1R are shown to be recessives for the red hair phenotype.[26] The gene HCL2 (also called RHC or RHA) on chromosome 4 may also be related to red hair.[27][28]

In species other than primates, red hair has different genetic origins and mechanisms.

Evolution

Origins

Red hair is the rarest natural hair color in humans. The non-tanning skin associated with red hair may have been advantageous in far-northern climates where sunlight is scarce. Studies by Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza (1976) hypothesized that lighter skin pigmentation prevents rickets in colder climates by encouraging higher levels of Vitamin D production and also allows the individual to retain heat better than someone with darker skin.[29] In 2000, Harding et al. concluded that red hair was not the result of positive selection and instead proposed that it occurs because of a lack of negative selection. In Africa, for example, red hair is selected against because high levels of sun would be harmful to untanned skin. However, in Northern Europe this does not happen, so redheads come about through genetic drift.[26]

Estimates on the original occurrence of the currently active gene for red hair vary from 20,000 to 100,000 years ago.[30][31]

A DNA study has concluded that some Neanderthals also had red hair, although the mutation responsible for this differs from that which causes red hair in modern humans.[32]

Extinction hoax

A 2007 report in The Courier-Mail, which cited the National Geographic magazine and unnamed "geneticists", said that red hair is likely to die out in the near future.[33] Other blogs and news sources ran similar stories that attributed the research to the magazine or the "Oxford Hair Foundation". However, a HowStuffWorks article says that the foundation was funded by hair-dye maker Procter & Gamble, and that other experts had dismissed the research as either lacking in evidence or simply bogus. The National Geographic article in fact states "while redheads may decline, the potential for red isn't going away".[34]

Red hair is caused by a relatively rare recessive gene, the expression of which can skip generations. It is not likely to disappear at any time in the foreseeable future.[34]

Medical implications of the red hair gene

Melanoma

Melanin in the skin aids UV tolerance through suntanning, but fair-skinned persons lack the levels of melanin needed to prevent UV-induced DNA-damage. Studies have shown that red hair alleles in MC1R increase freckling and decrease tanning ability.[35] It has been found that Europeans who are heterozygous for red hair exhibit increased sensitivity to UV radiation.[36]

Red hair and its relationship to UV sensitivity are of interest to many melanoma researchers. Sunshine can both be good and bad for a person's health and the different alleles on MC1R represent these adaptations. It also has been shown that individuals with pale skin are highly susceptible to a variety of skin cancers such as melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma.[37][38]

Pain tolerance and injury

Two studies have demonstrated that people with red hair have different sensitivity to pain compared to people with other hair colors. One study found that people with red hair are more sensitive to thermal pain (associated with naturally occurring low vitamin K levels),[39] while another study concluded that redheads are less sensitive to pain from multiple modalities, including noxious stimuli such as electrically induced pain.[40][41][42]

Researchers have found that people with red hair require greater amounts of anesthetic.[43] Other research publications have concluded that women with naturally red hair require less of the painkiller pentazocine than do either women of other hair colors or men of any hair color. A study showed women with red hair had a greater analgesic response to that particular pain medication than men.[44] A follow-up study by the same group showed that men and women with red hair had a greater analgesic response to morphine-6-glucuronide.[42]

The unexpected relationship of hair color to pain tolerance appears to exist because redheads have a mutation in a hormone receptor that can apparently respond to at least two types of hormones: the pigmentation driving melanocyte-stimulating hormone (MSH), and the pain relieving endorphins. (Both derive from the same precursor molecule, POMC, and are structurally similar.) Specifically, redheads have a mutated melanocortin-1 receptor (MC1R) gene that produces an altered receptor for MSH.[45] Melanocytes, the cells that produce pigment in skin and hair, use the MC1R to recognize and respond to MSH from the anterior pituitary gland. Melanocyte-stimulating hormone normally stimulates melanocytes to make black eumelanin, but if the melanocytes have a mutated receptor, they will make reddish pheomelanin instead. MC1R also occurs in the brain, where it is one of a large set of POMC-related receptors that are apparently involved not only in responding to MSH, but also in responses to endorphins and possibly other POMC-derived hormones.[45] Though the details are not clearly understood, it appears that there is some "cross talk" between the POMC hormones that may explain the link between red hair and pain tolerance.

There is little or no evidence to support the belief that people with red hair have a higher chance than people with other hair colors to hemorrhage or suffer other bleeding complications.[46][47] One study, however, reports a link between red hair and a higher rate of bruising.[47]

Red hair of pathological origin

Most red hair is caused by the MC1R gene and is non-pathological. However, in rare cases red hair can be associated with disease or genetic disorder:

Culture

In various times and cultures, red hair has been prized, feared, and ridiculed.

Portrait of a Lady, circa 1470-1475, by Sandro Botticelli
Elizabeth I of England, circa 1588

Beliefs about temperament

A common belief about redheads is that they have fiery tempers and sharp tongues. In Anne of Green Gables, a character says of Anne Shirley, the redheaded heroine, that "her temper matches her hair", while in The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield remarks that "People with red hair are supposed to get mad very easily, but Allie [his dead brother] never did, and he had very red hair."

During the early stages of modern medicine, red hair was thought to be a sign of a sanguine temperament.[50] In the Indian medicinal practice of Ayurveda, redheads are seen as most likely to have a Pitta temperament.

Another belief is that redheads are highly sexed; for example, Jonathan Swift satirizes redhead stereotypes in part four of Gulliver's Travels, "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms," when he writes that: "It is observed that the red-haired of both sexes are more libidinous and mischievous than the rest, whom yet they much exceed in strength and activity." Swift goes on to write that: "...neither was the hair of this brute [a Yahoo] of a red colour (which might have been some excuse for an appetite a little irregular) but black as a sloe..."[51] Such beliefs were given a veneer of scientific credibility in the 19th century by Cesare Lombroso and Guglielmo Ferrero. They concluded that red hair was associated with crimes of lust, and claimed that 48% of "criminal women" were redheads.[52]

In the novel and film Red-Headed Woman, the titular protagonist is a sexually aggressive home-wrecker who frequently throws violent temper tantrums.

Fashion and art

"The Accolade" by Edmund Blair Leighton

Queen Elizabeth I of England was a redhead, and during the Elizabethan era in England, red hair was fashionable for women. In modern times, red hair is subject to fashion trends; celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, Alyson Hannigan, Marcia Cross, Christina Hendricks, Emma Stone and Geri Halliwell can boost sales of red hair dye.

Sometimes, red hair darkens as people get older, becoming a more brownish color or losing some of its vividness. This leads some to associate red hair with youthfulness, a quality that is generally considered desirable. In several countries such as India, Iran, Bangladesh and Pakistan, henna and saffron are used on hair to give it a bright red appearance.[53]

Many painters have exhibited a fascination with red hair. The hair color "Titian" takes its name from the artist Titian, who often painted women with red hair. Early Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli's famous painting The Birth of Venus depicts the mythological goddess Venus as a redhead. Other painters notable for their redheads include the Pre-Raphaelites, Edmund Leighton, Modigliani,[54] and Gustav Klimt.[55]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story The Red-Headed League involves a man who is asked to become a member of a mysterious group of red-headed people. The 1943 film DuBarry Was a Lady featured red-heads Lucille Ball and Red Skelton in Technicolor.

Prejudice and discrimination against redheads

Medieval beliefs

Barbarossa (Redbeard), Ottoman Admiral

Red hair was thought to be a mark of a beastly sexual desire and moral degeneration. A savage red-haired man is portrayed in the fable by Grimm brothers (Der Eisenhans) as the spirit of the forest of iron. Theophilus Presbyter describes how the blood of a red-haired young man is necessary to create gold from copper, in a mixture with the ashes of a basilisk.[56]

Montague Summers, in his translation of the Malleus Maleficarum,[57] notes that red hair and green eyes were thought to be the sign of a witch, a werewolf or a vampire during the Middle Ages;

Those whose hair is red, of a certain peculiar shade, are unmistakably vampires. It is significant that in ancient Egypt, as Manetho tells us, human sacrifices were offered at the grave of Osiris, and the victims were red-haired men who were burned, their ashes being scattered far and wide by winnowing-fans. It is held by some authorities that this was done to fertilize the fields and produce a bounteous harvest, red-hair symbolizing the golden wealth of the corn. But these men were called Typhonians, and were representatives not of Osiris but of his evil rival Typhon, whose hair was red.

Modern-day discrimination

"Carrot head" redirects here. For the French novel, see Poil de carotte.

In his 1885 book I Say No, Wilkie Collins wrote "The prejudice against habitual silence, among the lower order of the people, is almost as inveterate as the prejudice against red hair."

In his 1895 memoir and history The Gurneys of Earlham, Augustus John Cuthbert Hare described an incident of harassment: "The second son, John, was born in 1750. As a boy he had bright red hair, and it is amusingly recorded that one day in the streets of Norwich a number of boys followed him, pointing to his red locks and saying, " Look at that boy ; he's got a bonfire on the top of his head," and that John Gurney was so disgusted that he went to a barber's, had his head shaved, and went home in a wig. He grew up, however, a remarkably attractive-looking young man."[58]

In British English, the words "ginger" or "ginga" are sometimes used to describe red-headed people (and are at times considered insulting),[59] with terms such as "gingerphobia"[60] and "gingerism"[61] used by the British media. In Britain, redheads are also sometimes referred to disparagingly as "carrot tops" and "carrot heads". (The comedian "Carrot Top" uses this stage name.) "Gingerism" has been compared to racism, although this is widely disputed, and bodies such as the UK Commission for Racial Equality do not monitor cases of discrimination and hate crimes against redheads.[61]

Nonetheless, individuals and families in Britain are targeted for harassment and violence because of their hair colour. In 2003, a 20-year-old was stabbed in the back for "being ginger".[62] In 2007, a UK woman won an award from a tribunal after being sexually harassed and receiving abuse because of her red hair;[63] in the same year, a family in Newcastle upon Tyne, was forced to move twice after being targeted for abuse and hate crime on account of their red hair.[64] In May 2009, a schoolboy committed suicide after being bullied for having red hair.[65] in 2013, a fourteen-year-old boy in Lincoln had his right arm broken and his head stamped on by three men who attacked him "just because he had red hair". The three men were subsequently jailed for a combined total of ten years and one month for the attack.[66]

This prejudice has been satirised on a number of TV shows. The British comedian Catherine Tate (herself a redhead) appeared as a red-haired character in a running sketch of her series The Catherine Tate Show. The sketch saw fictional character Sandra Kemp, who was forced to seek solace in a refuge for ginger people because she had been ostracised from society.[67] The British comedy Bo' Selecta! (starring redhead Leigh Francis) featured a spoof documentary which involved a caricature of Mick Hucknall presenting a show in which celebrities (played by themselves) dyed their hair red for a day and went about daily life being insulted by people. (Hucknall, who says that he has repeatedly faced prejudice or been described as ugly on account of his hair colour, argues that Gingerism should be described as a form of racism.[68][69]) Comedian Tim Minchin, himself a redhead, also covered the topic in his song "Prejudice".[70]

In the United States, film and television programmes often portray school bullies as having red hair;[71] for example, Scut Farkus from A Christmas Story, the O'Doyle family in the movie Billy Madison, and Caruso in Everybody Hates Chris. The pejorative use of the word "ginger" and related discrimination was used to illustrate a point about racism and prejudice in the "Ginger Kids", "Le Petit Tourette", "It's a Jersey Thing" and "Fatbeard" episodes of South Park. However, children with red hair are often themselves targeted by bullies; "Somebody with ginger hair will stand out from the crowd," says anti-bullying expert Louise Burfitt-Dons.[72]

In Australian slang, redheads are often nicknamed "Blue" or "Bluey".[73] More recently, they have been referred to as "rangas" (a word derived from the red-haired ape, the orangutan), sometimes with derogatory connotations.[74] The word "rufus" has been used in both Australian and British slang to refer to red-headed people;[75] based on a variant of rufous, a reddish-brown color.

In November 2008 social networking website Facebook received criticism after a 'Kick a Ginger' group, which aimed to establish a "National Kick a Ginger Day" on 20 November, acquired almost 5,000 members. A 14-year-old boy from Vancouver who ran the Facebook group was subjected to an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for possible hate crimes.[76]

In December 2009 British supermarket chain Tesco withdrew a Christmas card which had the image of a child with red hair sitting on the lap of Santa Claus, and the words: "Santa loves all kids. Even ginger ones" after customers complained the card was offensive.[77]

In October 2010, Harriet Harman, the former Equality Minister in the British government under Labour, faced accusations of prejudice after she described the red-haired Treasury secretary Danny Alexander as a "ginger rodent".[78] Alexander responded to the insult by stating that he was "proud to be ginger".[79] Harman was subsequently forced to apologise for the comment, after facing criticism for prejudice against a minority group.[80]

In September 2011, Cryos International, one of the world's largest sperm banks, announced that it would no longer accept donations from red-haired men due to low demand from women seeking artificial insemination.[81]

Use of term in Singapore and Malaysia

The term ang mo (Chinese: 红毛; pinyin: hóng máo; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: âng-mo͘) in Hokkien (Min Nan) Chinese means "red-haired",[82] and is used in Malaysia and Singapore to refer to white people. The epithet is sometimes rendered as ang mo kui (红毛鬼) meaning "red-haired devil", similar to the Cantonese term gweilo ("foreign devil"). Thus it is viewed as racist and derogatory by some people.[83] Others, however, maintain it is acceptable.[84] Despite this ambiguity, it is a widely used term. It appears, for instance, in Singaporean newspapers such as The Straits Times,[85] and in television programmes and films.

The Chinese characters for ang mo are the same as those in the historical Japanese term Kōmō (紅毛), which was used during the Edo period (1603–1868) as an epithet for Dutch or Northern European people. It primarily referred to Dutch traders who were the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan during Sakoku, its 200-year period of isolation.[86]

Red hair festivals

Hundreds of redheads together at the Redheadday 2008

The Irish Redhead Convention, held in late August, claims to be a global celebration and attracts people from several continents. The celebrations include crowning the ginger King and Queen, competitions for the best red eyebrows and most freckles per square inch, orchestral concerts and carrot throwing competitions.[87]

Redheadday is the name of a Dutch festival that takes place each first weekend of September in the city of Breda, the Netherlands. The two-day festival is a gathering of people with natural red hair, but is also focused on art related to the color red. Activities during the festival include lectures, workshops and demonstrations.

Religious and mythological traditions

In the Iliad, Achilles' hair is described as ξανθῆς[88] (ksanthēs), usually translated as blonde, or golden[89] but sometimes as red or tawny.[90][91] His son Neoptolemus also bears the name Pyrrhus, a possible reference to his own red hair.[92]

The Norse god Thor is usually described as having red hair.[93]

Mary Magdalene is commonly portrayed with long red hair, as in this painting by Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys

The Hebrew word usually translated "ruddy" or "reddish-brown" (admoni אדמוני, from the root ADM אדם, see also Adam and Edom)[94][95][96][97] was used to describe both Esau and David.

Early artistic representations of Mary Magdalene usually depict her as having long flowing red hair, although a description of her hair color was never mentioned in the Bible, and it is possible the color is an effect caused by pigment degradation in the ancient paint.

Judas Iscariot is also represented with red hair in Spanish culture[98][99] and in the works of William Shakespeare,[100] reinforcing the negative stereotype.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "redhead, n. and adj.". OED Online. Oxford University Press. June 2011. Retrieved 7 August 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Valverde P, Healy E, Jackson I, Rees JL, Thody AJ (1995). "Variants of the melanocyte-stimulating hormone receptor gene are associated with red hair and fair skin in humans". Nature Genetics 11 (3): 328–30. doi:10.1038/ng1195-328. PMID 7581459.
  3. ↑ Kenny, E et al, "Melanesian Blond Hair Is Caused by an Amino Acid Change in TYRP1", Science, 4 May 2012, Vol. 336 no. 6081 p. 554.
  4. ↑ "Men make gods in their own image; those of the Ethiopians are black and snub-nosed, those of the Thracians have blue eyes and red hair." Xenophanes of Colophon: Fragments, Xenophanes, J. H. Lesher, University of Toronto Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8020-8508-3, p. 90.
  5. ↑ "Mysterious Mummies of China". NOVA. Season 25. 20 January 1998.
  6. ↑ http://www.jps.auckland.ac.nz/document/Volume_31_1922/Volume_31,_No._121/Maori_somatology._Racial_averages,_by_Te_Rangi_Hiroa_%28P._H._Buck%29,_p_37-44/p1
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  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Moffat, Alistair. "Celts' red hair could be attributed to the cloudy weather". Retrieved 31 December 2014.
  9. ↑ Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (1994). The Times guide to the peoples of Europe. London: Times Books. ISBN 0-7230-0624-5.
  10. ↑ "Scots ginger 'nuts' appeal". News: Scotland (BBC). 4 July 2000. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  11. ↑ Hooton, Earnest A. (1940). "Stature, head form, and pigmentation of adult male Irish". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 26 (1): 229. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330260131.
  12. ↑ Sunderland E (May 1956). "Hair-color variation in the United Kingdom". Annals of Human Genetics 20 (4): 312–33. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.1955.tb01286.x. PMID 13314401.
  13. ↑ Stirling, John (1870–1871). "The Races of Morocco". Journal of the Anthropological Society of London (Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland) 8: clxix–clxxiii. doi:10.2307/3025183. JSTOR 3025183.
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  15. ↑ "Their pigmentation is characteristically brunet, but definite blonds occur. Black and dark brown hair run to 85 percent (85%) of the whole, while reds number 4 percent (4%)", Carleton S. Coon, The Races of Europe (1939), Greenwood Press, 1972, p. 478
  16. ↑ "There are, however, a noticeable number of Kabyles with red hair, blue eyes and fair skin", Area Handbook for Algeria, American University, 1965, p. 91
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  18. ↑ The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature, By Leonid Livak, (Stanford University Press 2010).
  19. ↑ Judas's Red Hair and The Jews, Journal of Jewish Art (9), 31–46, 1982, Melinnkoff R.M
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  21. ↑ Jewish hearts: a study of dynamic ethnicity in the United States and the Soviet Union, SUNY Press, 2001, Betty N. Hoffman, page 106
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  40. ↑ Sullivan, Amy (11 December 2005). "Stoic Redheads". New York Times. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  41. ↑ "Do redheads really feel more pain? The jury's still out". Wellness Blog on TIME.com. 12 August 2009. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Mogil JS, Ritchie J, Smith SB et al. (July 2005). "Melanocortin-1 receptor gene variants affect pain and mu-opioid analgesia in mice and humans". Journal of Medical Genetics 42 (7): 583–7. doi:10.1136/jmg.2004.027698. PMC 1736101. PMID 15994880.
  43. ↑ Liem EB, Lin CM, Suleman MI et al. (August 2004). "Anesthetic requirement is increased in redheads". Anesthesiology 101 (2): 279–83. doi:10.1097/00000542-200408000-00006. PMC 1362956. PMID 15277908.
  44. ↑ Mogil JS, Wilson SG, Chesler EJ et al. (April 2003). "The melanocortin-1 receptor gene mediates female-specific mechanisms of analgesia in mice and humans". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100 (8): 4867–72. doi:10.1073/pnas.0730053100. PMC 153647. PMID 12663858.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Liem EB, Lin CM, Suleman MI et al. (2004). "Anesthetic requirement is increased in redheads". Anesthesiology 101 (2): 279–83. doi:10.1097/00000542-200408000-00006. PMC 1362956. PMID 15277908.
  46. ↑ Kumar VV, Kumar NV, Isaacson G (November 2004). "Superstition and post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage". The Laryngoscope 114 (11): 2031–3. doi:10.1097/01.mlg.0000147942.82626.1c. PMID 15510037.
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Liem Edwin B. et al. (2006). "Women with Red Hair Report a Slightly Increased Rate of Bruising but Have Normal Coagulation Tests". Anesthesia & Analgesia 102 (1): 313–318. doi:10.1213/01.ANE.0000180769.51576.CD. PMC 1351323. PMID 16368849.
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Pathology Guy: Accumulations and Deposits Ed Friedlander, M.D., Pathologist. Last updated 24 September 2006
  49. ↑ Challis BG, Pritchard LE, Creemers JW et al. (August 2002). "A missense mutation disrupting a dibasic prohormone processing site in pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) increases susceptibility to early-onset obesity through a novel molecular mechanism". Hum. Mol. Genet. 11 (17): 1997–2004. doi:10.1093/hmg/11.17.1997. PMID 12165561.
    Krude H, Biebermann H, Gruters A (June 2003). "Mutations in the human proopiomelanocortin gene". Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci. 994 (1): 233–9. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb03185.x. PMID 12851321.
  50. ↑ The Practical Magnetic Healer G. M. Brown 1899
  51. ↑ Gulliver's Travels on Project Gutenberg Original by Jonathan Swift 1726
  52. ↑ Nicole Hahn Rafter (ed), Lombroso & Ferraro, Criminal Woman, the Prostitute, and the Normal Woman, Duke University Press, 2004, p.123-4.
  53. ↑ Henna – history Plant Cultures: Exploring plants and people. 18 November 2004
  54. ↑ "Image Young Redhead in an Evening Dress". WebMuseum. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  55. ↑ "Danae". WebMuseum. Retrieved 11 May 2011.
  56. ↑ Palo Galloni, Il sacro artefice, Laterza, Bari 1998 (Italian book, chapter 2 about the recipe of Theophilus De auro hyspanico).
  57. ↑ Summers, Montague; Sprenger & Kramer (1971 (trans)) [First published 1484]. Malleus Maleficarum. pp. Ch. 3. ISBN 0-486-22802-9. Check date values in: |date= (help) – see Malleus Maleficarum
  58. ↑ Hare, Augustus John Cuthbert (1895). ""The Home of Earlham"". The Gurneys of Earlham.
  59. ↑ "Redheads We Love!". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
  60. ↑ Gingerphobia: Carrot-tops see red BBC News, 22 February 2000
  61. ↑ 61.0 61.1 BBC News (6 June 2007). "Is Gingerism as Bad as Racism?". Retrieved 5 July 2007.
  62. ↑ BBC News (24 November 2003). "Man stabbed over "ginger hair"". Retrieved 5 July 2007.
  63. ↑ £18,000 for the waitress taunted over her red hair Daily Mail, 26 June 2007
  64. ↑ Red-haired family forced to move BBC News, 2 June 2007
  65. ↑ Schoolboy bullied over ginger hair hanged himself Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2009
  66. ↑ "'Red hair revenge' attack on Lincoln boy sees men jailed". BBC News. 16 April 2013. Retrieved 11 November 2013.
  67. ↑ Catherine Tate: Ginger Refuge video Gingerism.com, 18 December 2008
  68. ↑ Jinman, Richard (4 July 2003). "Taking the Mick". The Sydney Morning Herald.
  69. ↑ "Mick Hucknall says that 'ginger' jibes are as bad as racism". The Insider.
  70. ↑ YouTube – Prejudice by Tim Minchin
  71. ↑ Daily Bruin. "The stigma of TV's redheads". Retrieved 3 April 2006.
  72. ↑ "Carrot-Tops: Being Red Not So Easy". ABC News. 13 August 2007. Retrieved 29 August 2013.
  73. ↑ "Australian slang – a story of Australian English".
  74. ↑ "Return of the Ranga". The Punch (Australia). Retrieved 10 January 2012.
  75. ↑ "Rufus River". Geographical Names Register (GNR) of NSW. Geographical Names Board of New South Wales. Retrieved 10 February 2013.
  76. ↑ Moore, Matthew (22 November 2008). "Facebook 'Kick a Ginger' campaign prompts attacks on redheads". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved 28 December 2009.
  77. ↑ "Tesco apologises over 'ginger jibe' card". BBC News. 14 December 2009. Retrieved 28 December 2009.
  78. ↑ Carlin, Brendan; Tait, Michael (31 October 2010). "Harriet Harman takes a swipe at 'ginger rodent' Danny Alexander". Daily Mail (London).
  79. ↑ "Harriet Harman says 'ginger rodent' comment was wrong". BBC News. 30 October 2010.
  80. ↑ Moss, Vincent (31 October 2010). "Harriet Harman apologises for 'ginger rodent' jibe at Danny Alexander". Daily Mirror (London).
  81. ↑ "Sperm bank can't find takers for red-haired genes". The Star (Toronto). 20 September 2011.
  82. ↑ Walter Henry Medhurst (1832). "A Dictionary of the Hok-Këèn Dialect of the Chinese Language, according to the Reading and Colloquial Idioms; containing about 12,000 Characters ... Accompanied by a Short Historical and Statistical Account of Hok-Këèn; a Treatise on the Orthography of the ... Dialect, etc.". Macao: Printed at the Honorable East India Company's Press by G.J. Steyn and Brother. p. 481, col. 1. 紅毛 âng mô, red haired, generally applied to the English people.
  83. ↑ See, for instance, g Soh Chin (30 October 2004). The Straits Times (Life!) (Singapore). p. 4. [M]any of my Singaporean friends felt the term 'ang moh' was definitely racist. Said one, with surprising finality: 'The original term was "ang moh gui" which means "red hair devil" in Hokkien. That's definitely racist.' However, the 'gui' bit has long been dropped from the term, defanging it considerably. ... Both 'ang moh gui' and 'gwailo' – Cantonese for 'ghost (white) guy' – originated from the initial Chinese suspicion of foreigners way back in those days when the country saw itself as the Middle Kingdom. Missing or empty |title= (help); Ashley, Sean (5 November 2004). "Stop calling me ang moh [letter]". The Straits Times (Singapore). p. 5. As an 'ang moh' who has lived here for over six years, I hope more people will realise just how offensive the term is.
  84. ↑ For instance, Hubble, Garry (5 November 2004). The Straits Times (Singapore). p. 5. To have my Chinese Singaporean friends call me 'ang moh' is more humorous than anything else. As no insult is intended, none is taken. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  85. ↑ Sargent, Michael D. (21 October 2007). "Lessons for this gweilo and ang moh". The Straits Times (Singapore).; Ee Wen Wei, Jamie (11 November 2007). "Meet Bukit Panjang's 'ang moh leader'". The Straits Times (Singapore). Archived from the original on 2007-05-15.
  86. ↑ See, for example, Ranzaburo Otori (1964). "The Acceptance of Western Medicine in Japan". Monumenta Nipponica 19 (3/4): 254–274. doi:10.2307/2383172. JSTOR 2383172.; P[eng] Y[oke] Ho; F. P[eter] Lisowski (1993). "A Brief History of Medicine in Japan". Concepts of Chinese Science and Traditional Healing Arts: A Historical Review. Singapore: World Scientific. pp. 65–78 at 73. ISBN 978-981-02-1495-1. (hbk.). ISBN 978-981-02-1496-8. The culture which entered Japan through the Dutch language was called Kōmō culture – Kōmō means red hair.; Winkel, Margarita (1999). "Academic Traditions, Urban Dynamics and Colonial Threat: The Rise of Ethnography in Early Modern Japan". In van Bremen, Jan; Akitoshi Shimizu, eds. Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon. pp. 40–64 at 53. ISBN 978-0-7007-0604-4. His [Morishima Chūryō's] book on the Dutch, 'Red-hair miscellany' (Kōmō zatsuwa), also appeared in 1787. ... 'Red-hair miscellany' is the first book which contains a relatively extensive description of the daily life of the Dutch residents in the confinements of Deshima, the man made island allotted to them in the Bay of Nagasaki.; Veldman, Jan E. (2002). "A Historical Vignette: Red-Hair Medicine". ORL 64 (2): 157–165. doi:10.1159/000057797. PMID 12021510.; Thomas M. van Gulik; Yuji Nimura (January 2005). "Dutch Surgery in Japan". World Journal of Surgery 29 (1): 10–17 at 10. doi:10.1007/s00268-004-7549-3. PMID 15599736. Several Dutch surgical schools were founded through which Dutch surgery, known in Japan as 'surgery of the red-haired' was propagated.; Michael Dunn (20 November 2008). "Japanning for southern barbarians: Some of the first items traded with the West were decorated with maki-e lacquer". Japan Times. Archived from the original on 24 June 2010. Dutch taste dictated a new style of export lacquer known as 'komo shikki' ('red hair' – a common term for Northern Europeans), in which elaborate gold-lacquer decoration replaced the complex inlays of Nanban ware.
  87. ↑ Curtis, Dan (25 Aug 2014). "The Irish Redhead Convention takes place in County Cork". BBC News. Retrieved 4 Sep 2014.
  88. ↑ "Homer, Iliad, Book 1". Perseus Digital Library. Tufts University. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
  89. ↑ Homer (1999). The Iliad. Trans. Ian Johnston, Ian C. Johnston. Penguin. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-977626-90-8. Retrieved 1 May 2011. As he argued in his mind and heart, he slid his huge sword part way from its sheath. At that moment, Athena came down from heaven. White-armed Hera sent her. She cherished both men, cared for them equally. Athena stood behind Achilles, grabbed him by his golden hair, invisible to all except Achilles.
  90. ↑ Homer (1999). The Iliad: the story of Achillês. Trans. William Henry Denham Rouse. Penguin. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-0-451-52737-0. Retrieved 1 May 2011. As these thoughts went through his mind, and he began to draw the great sword from the sheath, Athena came down from heaven: Queen Hera sent her, loving and anxious at once. She stood behind him and held him back by his long red hair. No other man saw her but Achilles alone.
  91. ↑ Homer (1999). Iliad: Books 1–12. Trans. Augustus Taber Murray, William F. Wyatt. Harvard University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-674-99579-6. Retrieved 1 May 2011.
  92. ↑ Grant, Michael; Hazel, John (2002). Who's who in classical mythology. Psychology Press. p. 359. ISBN 978-0-415-26041-1. Retrieved 1 May 2011. The child subsequently born to her was called Pyrrhus ('red-haired'), either because he had red hair or because the disguised Achilles had been known at Lycomedes' court as Pyrrha.
  93. ↑ Lacy, Terry G. (2000). Ring of Seasons: Iceland—Its Culture and History. University of Michigan Press. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-472-08661-0. Retrieved 1 May 2011. He had a mass of red hair and a red beard and, when roused, a fearsome voice and a penetrating gaze under beetling red eyebrows.
  94. ↑ BiblicalTraining.org Red
  95. ↑ "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible".
  96. ↑ "Biblos Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible".
  97. ↑ "Biblos Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible".
  98. ↑ Red Hair. The eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science, and art 2 (Leavitt, Trow, & Co.). July 1851. pp. 315–317.
  99. ↑ White, Joseph Blanco (1825). Letters from Spain. H. Colburn. p. 256.
  100. ↑ Nares, Robert; Halliwell-Phillipps, James Orchard; Wright, Thomas (1859). A glossary: or, Collection of words, phrases, names, and allusions to customs, proverbs, etc., which have been thought to require illustration, in the words of English authors, particularly Shakespeare, and his contemporaries 1. J.R. Smith. p. 473.

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