How Much Is A Ginger Worth?

I have always know redheads were pretty important. Or at the very least, I have know that there were so many fewer redheads than there were of any other hair color, and what is importance if not rarity? Look at gold. It's not one of the most expensive items to humankind just because it's pretty and sparkles. It's because of how rare it is. I believe the same can be said of redheads. Even in Scotland, the place with the highest percentage of redheads in the world (a common misconception is that it's highest in Ireland-not true), it is at a mere 13%.  Ireland, following the stereotype, follows closely with 10% of their population as redheads. In the world as a whole, gingers scrounge up a lowly 3% of the entire world. The number is even slightly less in America, where an estimated 2% of citizens have red hair, somewhere between 6 million to 18 million people. Please keep in mind that auburn or strawberry blonde are not included in these numbers, they are calculated separately. Those numbers are lower than any other hair colors- a fact that is almost completely unrequited by data collectors.
While the number of redheads is the world has been decreasing, there were never high percentages of them rising above other hair colors. If rare items are supposed to be the most treasured, have redheads been held above all others throughout history? Unfortunately, in most societies that would be a no. In many societies red hair was thought to tell many things about a person, like a fiery temper, high sensuality, or a devious mind. Many stories from the medieval ages depict redheads this way, especially as beasts of humans that have degraded morals. In Montague Summer's Malleus Maleficarum, he states that anyone who had red hair and green eyes were certainly a mythological creature such as a vampire, werewolf, or witch (another common thought was redheads meant the parents had conceived the child at a time of the month filled with more red than others-can you say tmi?). This was very similar to the Ancient Greeks who believed that after a redhead died they would return as vampires, so they would take preventative measures to keep the from rising from the dead. Following along these lines, during the Spanish Inquisition, many redheads were burned at the stake in Spain because the Church stated they had stolen fires from hell- a crime they did not take lightly. Russians were not the most loving of gingers either. They maid several points in their writings that no saints had been named redheads, and both Adam and Judas, the two worst traitors in the Bible we're thought to be redheads. Even Germany during the time it was run by Nazis, they considered not allowing redheads to marry so they could not taint the other people. Not all societies judged redheads so lightly. In Ancient Egypt, redheads were merely considered very unlucky, and were avoided in everyday life for the most part. In Roman society slaves with red hair were often sold for a much higher price. Unfortunately that might have been the highlight of my kind. With all these things considered, maybe being the most rare hair color isn't worth it after all.