The crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1877-1878, 1878-03-21

"Head-hurting," says st. John, "is
not somuch areligious ceremony among
the Pakatans, Borneo, as merely to
show their bravery and manliness.
When they quarrel, it is constant
Phrase, 'Howmany heads did your faith
ers get?' Ii less than his own numbers
We'll, then, you have no occasion to
be proud" The head of an enemy is
of IN inconvenient bulk and when the
journey home is long, there arises the
question-cannot proof that an enemy
has been killed be given by carrying
back part only? In some places the
savage infers that it can, and acts on
the inference This modification and
its meaning are well shown in Ashantee,
where "thc General in command sends
to the capital the jaw-bones Of the slain
enemies;" and where, as Ramseyei
further tells us, "a day OF rejoicing oc-
Cured on July 3, when 10 loads of jaws
arrived from the scat of war as trophies
Of victory" When first found, the Ia
hitians, too, carried the jaw-bones of
their enemies; ;and Cook saw 10 Of them
fastened up at the end of the house.
Similarly Of Vate, where "the create;
the chief the greater the display of
bones" we read that if a slain enemy
was one who spoke i'll of the chief, his
jaws are hung up in the chiefs house as
trophy"-a tacit threat to others who
vihiied him. A recent account of an
other Papuan race inhabiting Boigu, on
the coast of New Guinea. further illus
trates the practice, and also its social
effect. Mr.. Stone writes: by nature
these people are bloody and war-like
among themselves, frequently making
raids to the Big Land, and returning
in triumph with the heads and jaw
bones of their slaughtered victims, the
latter becoming the property of the
murderer, and the former of him who
decapitates the body. The jaw-bone is
consequently held as the most
valued trophy and the more
man possesses the greater he becomes
in th. eyes of his fellow-men." 1t may
be added that the Tupis of South
America, trophies of an allied kind were
worn In honoring victorious warri-
or, among some tribes they rubbed
his pnlsc with one of the eyes of the
dead, and hung the mouth upon his
arm like bracelet" With the display
of jaws as trophies, there may be named
a kindred use of teeth. America fur
nishes instances. The Caribs strung
together the teeth of such of their ene-
mics as they had slain in battle, and
wore them on their legs and arms"
The Tupis, after doyOuring captive.
preserved "the teeth strung in neck
laccs." The Moxos women wore "a
necklace made of the teeth Of enemies
killed by their husbands in battle"
In the times of the Spanish invaders,
the Central Americans made an image,
and in its mouth inserted teeth taken
from the Spaniards whom they had
killed. And passage quoted above
specifies teeth as among the trophies
worn by the Ashantees. Other parts
of the head, easily detached and carri-
ed, also served. Where many enemies
are slain, the collected ears yield in
small bulk means of counting; and
probably Zengis Khan had this end in
view when, in Poland, he filled nine
sacks with the right ears of the slain"
Noses, again, are in some cases chosen
ns easily enumerated trophies. Ancient
ly, by Constantine v, "a plate of noses
was accepted as Il grateful ollering;"
and, Mt the present time, the noses they
have taken are carried by soldiers to
their leaders in Montenegro. That the
slain Turks thus deprived OF their noses,
even to the extent of 500 on one battle
field were 50 treated in retaliation for
the dccapiiaion' the Turks had been
guilty Of, as true; but this excuse does
not alter the fact that the Montcne-
grin chiefs could not be pursuaded to
give up the practice of paying their
clansmcn for the number of noses
produced"