United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The first four of these are known as Tagalog provinces; the fifth is inhabited by Ilocanos and Pampangans. Three dialects or languages are spoken by the tribes in the territory covered. Not far beyond Daguban are savage dog-eating, head-hunting tribes; taos, or peasants, buy dogs around Daguban and sell to these savages at good profits.
The Dyaks were constantly at war, tribe against tribe, and no Dyak village was safe from sudden attack. Many human lives were sacrificed because the Dyaks wished, not only to obtain booty, but to satisfy their lust for blood, and indulge in their favourite pursuit of head-hunting, and gain glory for themselves by bringing home human heads to decorate their houses with.
The government of the Dutch Indies, with energy and success, is eradicating the evil head-hunting custom. Military expeditions involving great expense from time to time are sent into remote regions to capture a handful of culprits. By exercising tact it is not difficult finally to locate the malefactors, and indeed the tribe may deliver them.
The natives of Bontoc in the interior of Luzon, one of the Philippine Islands, are passionate head-hunters. Their principal seasons for head-hunting are the times of planting and reaping the rice. In order that the crop may turn out well, every farm must get at least one human head at planting and one at sowing.
From long continuance in the practice of head-hunting, many beliefs and superstitions arise to foster it, until in the minds of the people these beliefs are greater factors in its perpetuation than the original one of the debt of life. The possession of a head, with the accompanying honor, feasts, and good omens, seems in many cases to be of first importance rather than the avenging of a life.
Here I saw something of the Land Dayaks, but they are a poor degenerate breed, and not to be compared to the Sea Dayaks, who are born fighters, and whose predatory head-hunting instincts give a great deal of trouble to the government.
"Of Sarawack or Timbuctoo?" said Worcester, with scorn. "Bet my boots that Borneo one's governor went head-hunting in his time, and the darkest African one's knows what roasted man is." Acton laughed, for a nigger was to Worcester as a red rag to a bull. "St. Amory's for niggers!" Dick would say with intense scorn. "Anyhow," said Acton, "I think there's no need for us to be quite so slack."
The pathless jungles of teak and iron wood, inextricably tangled by ropes of liana or ladders of rattan, latticed with creepers and wreathed with clambering fern, make an impenetrable barrier between the settlements of the coast and the unknown interior, where barbarism still reigns triumphant, and "head-hunting" remains the traditional sport.
Heads are to a Dyak what money is to a man in civilized countries the more he has, the greater his importance. The Controleur at Tenggaroeng assured me very earnestly that his Dyak charges were by no means ferocious or bloodthirsty by nature and that they practised head-hunting less from pleasure than from force of custom.
AEsthetic Life There is relatively little "color" in the life of the Bontoc Igorot. In the preceding chapter reference was made to the belief that this lack of "color," the monotony of everyday life, has to do with the continuation of head-hunting. The life of the Igorot is somber-hued indeed as compared with that of his more advanced neighbor, the Ilokano. Dress
Word Of The Day