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As has been mentioned, there is an unique display of dress by the man at the head-taking ceremony of the ato, when some of the dancers wear boar-tusk armlets, called "ab-kil'," and a boar-tusk necklace, called "fu-yay'-ya."
Accounts of earlier travelers offer undoubted proof that head-hunting was rampant a generation ago; while the folk-tales feature the taking of heads as one of the most important events in Tinguian life. The first incentive for head-taking is in connection with funeral rites.
He threw himself heartily into the work of improving the people, and gained a good influence over many. One of the most important chiefs, Gassim, attached himself to him, and even gave up the practice of head-taking to please him. There were certain paddy farms in the country which by ancient custom could only be cultivated by heroes who had taken many heads.
The women encouraged head-taking by preferring to marry the man who had some of those ghastly tokens of his prowess. When Sir James Brooke forbad head-taking among the tribes in his dominions, it was the women who would row their lovers out of the rivers in their boats, and set them down on the sea-coast to find the head of a stranger.
The necessity of forswearing the practise of head-taking deters the old men from becoming Christians: they fear to lose influence with their tribe. The little party then fixed upon the spot where the church should be built, a permanent bilian chancel to which a nave could be added when the additional room was required.
As the branches and twigs that composed it often came over the path, on a hot day in the dry weather, I have more than once applied a match to it and burnt it down. However, in a very short time, a new heap of branches and twigs was piled on the ashes of the old tugong bula. The Dyak religious feasts may be divided into the four following classes: Those connected with Head-taking. Farming.
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