For unknown generations these people have been fierce
head-hunters. Nine-tenths of the men in the pueblos of Bontoc and
Samoki wear on the breast the indelible tattoo emblem which proclaims
them takers of human heads. The fawi of each ato in Bontoc has its
basket containing skulls of human heads taken by members of the ato.
There are several different classes of head-hunters among primitive
Malayan peoples, but the continuation of the entire practice is
believed to be due to the so-called "debt of life" -- that is, each
group of people losing a head is in duty and honor bound to cancel
the score by securing a head from the offenders. In this way the
score is never ended or canceled, since one or the other group is
always in debt.
It seems not improbable that the heads may have been cut off first
as the best way of making sure that a fallen enemy was certainly
slain. The head was at all events the best proof to a man's tribesmen
of the discharge of the debt of life; it was the trophy of success
in defeating the foe. Whatever the cause of taking the head may have
been with the first people, it would surely spread to others of a
similar culture who warred with a head-taking tribe, as they would
wish to appear as cruel, fierce, and courageous as the enemy.
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