Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/173

Rh ably because they are incongruous at a transaction of so different a nature.

I do not think it possible to reduce head-hunting to a single formula. I have found it connected with simple blood feud, with agrarian rites, and with funerary rites and eschatological belief. It may again be in some cases no more than a social duty,—obligatory upon those who seek to prove their fitness for initiation into tribal rites. It is compatible and co-existent with a strong sense of social solidarity, and it may be argued to be a survival,—stripped of much of its original significance, since it is observed among people who from the aspect of material culture are not primitive in that sense of that much-abused term, who are skilled in the arts of agriculture, weaving, and metal-work. But a society may be, in respect of its material culture, comparatively advanced, and yet exhibit a relatively low level of mentality.

Outside, but adjacent to, the area with which I am personally acquainted and from which I have drawn my facts, there are many tribes, speaking languages which are related to the Tibeto-Burman stock, with which the Nāgas and Kukis have many striking affinities, among whom head-hunting still flourishes. The wild Wa, for instance, have introduced strictly business methods and have a definite tariff for heads. Apparently there is no market in European heads as yet. Would it be out of place or unseemly to hint that the Wa country offers an admirable field for experiments in the direction of Tariff Reform?