上頭

[WKC]

I am trying to trace the original 上頭 wording.  There appears to be some variation as to what the wording used today.  It could be:

 

一梳梳到尾
二梳梳到白髮齊眉

三梳梳到兒孫滿地
四梳梳到四條銀筍盡標齊

 

or

 

一梳梳到尾

二梳百年好合

三梳子孙滿堂

四梳白髮齊眉

 

There also appears to be other variations.  Does anyone know if the wording appears in any classical text?

 

Thanks for your assistance.

[scottt]

「上頭」 orally means the Superiors in the organization.
Originally, it was one ceremony among the Chinese traditional wedding.

「上頭」contains decorating the bride's head more than just combing her hair.
The comb must be a new comb.
The person who doing the combing need be a good-fortune person (have many different relatives and kids).
The following 十梳歌 ("10 Combings Song") lyrics have the same numbers of characters in each greeting sentence and have similar ending-tune in each ending characters. ^{(Note 2)}

上頭十梳歌

一梳梳到髮尾；  
二梳白髮齊眉；   
三梳兒孫滿地；
四梳永諧連理；
五梳和順翁娌；
六梳福臨家地；
七梳吉逢禍避；
八梳一本萬利；
九梳樂膳百味；
十梳百無禁忌！

Note

• (1) 髮(Hair, in traditional Chinese) may convert into 发 (in simplified Chinese ).
  But 发 is normally converted to 發 (in traditional Chinese) instead of 髮. Both two traditional "FA" has different meaning.
• (2) Similar ending-tune:
  Mostly, 尾 yee, 地 dee, 理 lee, 娌 lee, 避 bee, 利 lee, 忌 jee ... all have "ee" ending
  And I guess the rest two, 眉 mei, 味 wei ... may also have similar ending-tune for some native language other than Mandarin (普通話).
• (3) Not the same as http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%AD%E5%BC%8F%E5%A9%9A%E7%A6%AE but I prefer to the above one from http://wenku.baidu.com/view/0769df19a76e58fafab0039d.html  (which has more lyrics)

[skylee]

「上頭」 orally means the Superiors in the organization.

 

The nature of the 上 is different.  When it means superior, it is an adjective.  As the name of the ceremony, 上 is a verb, same as 上樓, 上車, 上課, etc.

 

In Cantonese, the tone of 上 as an adjective meaning upper (tone 6) and that of 上 as a verb (tone 5) are different. 

[WKC]

scottt,

 

Many thanks.  I didn't know the  十梳歌 existed.

 

If anyone knows the wording of 上頭 during the Han Dynasty or Zhou Dynasty, I'd be most interested.

[Chieh Punchio]

There are variant definition of "上頭" in the ancient texts. The earliest appearance of "上頭" I know comes from《黃帝內經•經筋》: "…其直者，結于枕骨，上頭，下顏，結于鼻。" meaning "頭頂"……there are more definition in "康熙字典". You should check it out if you're interested in diction.

http://www.zdic.net/c/a/a/16267.htm

[WKC]

Chieh Punchio,

 

Many thanks.  Am working my way through 康熙字典. 

 

漢典 has inaccuracies.  Best to refer to the 同文書局原版 of 康熙字典 available online at http://kangxizidian.com/.

[Chieh Punchio]

Agreed, but then I myself prefer 中國哲學書電子化計劃 (http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=gb) the most……