When I was about six years old, I was living in Japan. While traveling on the train one day, a high-school age girl must have been entranced by my fine, wispy blonde hair and actually yanked a couple of hairs out of my scalp. So I have some idea how this woman feels.

On second thought, no, I really don't. There were no machetes involved, for one thing.

To split hairs: the bad thing would not be people feeling entitled, it would be the actual stealing.

Well, sure pie. I guess what really got me wasn't the theft aspect (which sucks, but people get robbed all the time) -- but the notion that someone felt, yes, entitled to actually steal a part of her body. That's worse to me than property theft. (Which is probably a hyper-obvious observation.) And what gets me about it is the sense of entitlement, not the crime aspect of it.

Eh, I'm tired and a bit grouchy and not feeling very articulate. Sorry.

[Jeremiah and Caleb find Del Gue buried to his neck in sand]

Jeremiah Johnson: Are you all right?
Del Gue: Sure, sure, I got a fine horse under me!
[sneezes]
Del Gue: Got one of them feathers in my nose.
Jeremiah Johnson: You keep sneezing, it'll come out all right. Haven't seen anyone pass by recent, have you?
Del Gue: Nobody's gone in front of me. Can't say what's happened behind me, though.
Jeremiah Johnson: The Injuns put you here?
Del Gue: T'weren't Mormons. A Chief, name of Mad Wolf. Nice fella, don't talk a hell of a lot. Say, you wouldn't have an extra hat on you, would you? Shade's getting' scarce in these parts.
Jeremiah Johnson: What'd you shave your head for?
Del Gue: Mad Wolf figures like every other Injun I know. Says this scalp isn't fit for no decent man's lodgepole. Ain't the first time I've protected my head in such a way. Name's Del Gue, with an "e".

And what gets me about it is the sense of entitlement, not the crime aspect of it.
And therein lies the difference between a criminal and a normal person.

Whoah I can't go to Brazil right now - my hair is currently about 65 cms long.

I'm surprised though that she was growing it for 2 decades - that seems pretty excessive even for the length.

gomi, the article cites a church. We have all kinds of fundamentalist evangelical religions in Brazil. For some of them it's a sin for women to cut their hair (I don't know the reasoning for that). Women in these churches tend to have quite long hair (1m is quite common). Without cutting it, the only limit is the natural hair loss (the weight also puts a bit of stress on the roots) -- opposite to what J-horror movies want you to believe, hair won't grow infinitely long: around 1m/3ft is the norm.

As an aside, here in the US I once saw a short woman (about 5ft) in the mall with at least 4ft of hair. Srsly, it went below her knees.

My oldest niece had hair long enough she could sit on it. Her mom was incredibly pissed off when she got it cut to just above her shoulders.

Just thought I'd add that.

when it gets long enough you can sit on it, you gotta be double-careful when you sit on the toilet.

Just adding some disgusting details

Yikes! How scary! (she's not making this up to get around that "don't cut hair" rule her church has, is she? I'm so cynical.)

My mom had long golden locks all the way down to her waist when she moved to Ghana. After a few months the heat got to her and she got it cut to a below the jaw fashionable bob. She says that dad didn't speak to her for three days he was so shocked.

I've been trying to get hair that long since I got hair, sadly I inherited my dads (thin whispy flat blah blondish/reddish) and it just kind of quits growing around my shoulder, I've never managed to get it longer than that. Aaargh!

A machete? I'm sure it wasn't a machete. That's about the worst thing you could use, just from a quick-chop perspective. Machetes aren't even that sharp, and something with a lot of slack affixed to a non-fixed object (like hair on a person) would be a total joke.