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AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERSOF FORMOSA
MAN AND WOMAN OF YAMI TRIBE IN REGALIA WORN AT THE SPRING FESTIVALIN HONOUR OF THE SEA-GOD.
(See page 149.)
AMONG THE HEAD-HUNTERS
OF FORMOSA
By JANET B. MONTGOMERY MCGOVERN, B.L.
Diplomée in Anthropology, University of Oxford
WITH A PREFACE BY
R. R. MARETT, M.A., D.Sc.
READER IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
ILLUSTRATED
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
TO
W. M. M.
MY SON AND THE COMPANION
OF MY WANDERINGS
“No human thought is so primitiveas to have lost bearing on our own thought, or so ancient as to havebroken connection with our own life.”
E. B. Tylor,Primitive Culture.
PREFACE
To treat her as a goddess has always been accounted a sure way ofwinning a lady’s favour. To the cynic, therefore, it might seemthat Mrs. McGovern was bound to speak well of her head-hunting friendsof the Formosan hills, seeing that they welcomed her with a respectthat bordered on veneration. But of other head-hunters, hailing, say,from Borneo or from Assam, anthropologists have reported no less well,and that though the investigators were accorded no divine honours.The key to a just estimate of savage morality is knowledge of all theconditions. A custom that considered in itself is decidedly revoltingmay, on further acquaintance with the state of culture as a whole, turnout to be, if not praiseworthy, at least a drawback incidental to anormal phase of the ruder life of mankind.
The “grizzled warrior,” we are told, who made oblationto our authoress, bore on his chin the honourable mark of theman-slayer. To her Chinese coolie that formidable badge would have beenenough to proclaim the wearer seban—the kind of wicked animalthat defends itself when attacked. Thus, if it merely served to warnan[10]invading alien to keep his distance, this crude advertisement ofa head-hunting habit would be justified, from the standpoint ofthe survival of the hard-pressed aborigines. Even had a threat ofcannibalism been thrown in, its protectiv