Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-02-17
HEAD HUNTERS SHOCKED.
Impressions London Made on Savage
Visitors From the Far East.

An entirely new viewpoint on Lon.
don and the English was that OF the
Ainu and Formosan head hunters VINO
recently went over there as sideshow
attractions Of the Anglo Japanese ex-
hibition. When the savages returned
to Japan bound for their homes IN
Hokkaido and Formosa Japanese pa
per cleaned some interesting impress
sions from them.
The Ainu are the Indians Of Japan,
the primitive race driven northward by
successive invasions Of the ancient
Japanese hosts from the mainland OF
Asia until now they live on reserva-
tions in the northernmost island of the
Japanese group, not at all influenced
by the quick civilization which has
been effected by their conquerors. The
Formosan savages are even more
primitive people than the Ainu. I'm
til Japan acquired the island from
China and began a systematic opening
up of the interior with the aid Of rifles
the head hunters of the jungle had
never come in contact with the outside
world.
The Formosan savages told their in
terviewer in Japan that people had
tried to fool them over in London when
they said that all of the great build
ings there were built by man and that
the steam railways were Of mans de-
vising. No, 1t was certain that nobody
except some tremendous god could
have built these wonders; man was
too puny a person to make steel rear
itself several hundred feet above the
earth or to tearing through the coun-
try with the speed of an arrow.
A note of sadness crept into the re-
trospection of the Formosans when
they recalled the fact that once they
were taken to a great building where
there were long shelves filled with hu-
man heads and skulls. Now why was
it that when the Japanese prohibited
head gathering in Formosa and pun
ished with death any one caught with
a head in his possession these English,
who called themselves civilized, should
be allowed to have countless fine heads
in their big house? Was it fair to the
Formosans to prohibit their pastime
of head hunting yet to allow the Gus
tom to exist in such a country as Eng
land?
The gentle collectors from Formosa
did not think much Of the king OF
England, who received them in audi
ence by special arrangement with the
directors Of the Japanese exhibit. Even
a small chief in Formosa would have
retinue of fifty men, the savages said,
whereas this king Of England had only
four or five men in his house, and even
they did not look much like warriors.
The Ainu travellers here put in a
word of reprobation. They had seen
English men with women walking
hand in hand or arm in arm in public
places Were these Englishmen not
thoroughly ashamed to be seen thus by
others? What kind Of civilization was
it that allowed a man and a woman to
walk hand in hand down a street?
The sad waste of Hyde Park i'm
pressed the hairy aborigines from
Hokkaido. There in the midst Of a
great city, where every foot Of ground
was occupied by a house or a store,
were great fields which might have
been planted to potatoes, but were
simply lying idle. There were no such
barren fields in Ainuland.
The Formosan brothers saw only one
thing that really reused their envy;
that was the modern rifle. 1t required
so little powder to shoot, and 1t never
exploded in the hunters hands like the
old Belgian muskets which traders
have been selling surreptitiously to the
warlike natives Of the camphor island.
The Formosans boastfully said that If
they were armed with such rifles in
stead of muskets, blowguns and bows
the Japanese army Of occupation would
never penetrate to the interior Of their
wilderness.-New York Sun.