Chapter XXXI

There are distinct evidences of blood-relationship between the savages of Taiwan and the inhabitants of the southern islands of Japan proper. Japanese who have lived long in Formosa confess that they cannot tell a head-hunter from one of their own people merely by his features. To Westerners the mountaineers look almost exactly Japanese, except that the eyes seem a bit more liquid, a trifle wider open, with that wild something in them of untamed animals which distinguishes the genuine savage the world over. Not merely do their features suggest the same origin as their would-be rulers; they are of about the same size and build, perhaps a bit larger, thanks to their more open-air life. It is coming to be believed by many that they and the Japanese are both Malay tribes which history has driven in different directions. Possibly they are the same people, who fought their way up from the south, this branch getting side-tracked and lost among the mountain fastnesses of Formosa and going, or remaining, wild, while the head-hunting propensities of the other branch turned to more modern methods. It is a captivating thought, and would make the “Jap man’s burden” all the more justified—merely the task of reclaiming his own lost brethren.

Certainly I had to look twice to recognize that the boys in a frontier school at one of the advance stations in Taiyal-land, dressed as they were in uniform kimonos of black and white plaid, were not what they seemed at first sight, but the sons of men who were recently, and in some cases probably still are, hunting the heads of their neighbors. In fact, there was one man among the two score boys who had the right to wear the hawk-feather of the successful hunter, a sturdy fellow of thirty, still with that peculiar wild-animal look in his eyes, who was in the same primary class as his son of six. It struck me that it would be a more thankful job to try to teach the son, an impression in which the Japanese teacher, in his pedagogue-gendarme uniform, bore me out.

In the camphor-camps and on the plantations where they accept employment as the first step toward giving up their chief tribal pastime, the savages work hard and are docile; those at least who are caught young learn moderately well in school, and they are on the whole not bad neighbors. In fact, we should get over the strange notion that because a man has the hobby of collecting the skulls of his fellows rather than postage-stamps or “old masters” he cannot also be in many ways quite an agreeable individual. I know many a man purporting to be civilized with whom I would much less rather go off on a camping-trip than with the fiercest head-hunter I have ever seen—once we got on a proper footing as to the inflated value I put on my own top-piece. It is said that doctors and teachers can go safely anywhere among them, if they carry proper and conspicuous credentials, and provided the Japanese will let them. The visitor who gets permission from, or evades, the government guards and goes at once to the chief of the tribe, makes himself popular by petting the children, treating the sick, and other forms of courtesy, until he has convinced his hosts that he is harmless, has rather a good chance of bringing his head back to civilization on his shoulders. Yet it is well not to gamble too recklessly. Though I have no illusions as to the utility of that portion of my anatomy about the neck, I several times had the feeling in Formosa that sturdy young men with disconcertingly piercing eyes and distressingly large knives at their waists were gazing at it with at least mild covetousness. Yet this may have been merely the result of a guilty conscience.

In short, they are not bad fellows, once one can overlook their little idiosyncrasy of gathering skulls that are not yet ripe for the garnering. They make good chauffeurs, for instance; certainly we all know chauffeurs who would make good head-hunters, and others whom we would be delighted to turn over to the innermost tribes of Formosa. I have already mentioned how no small number of these naïve children of the mountains have degenerated into rickshaw-runners, though I doubt whether they sprint between the shafts with anything like the vim that they did in pursuing or saving a head. Nor should we be too hard on them; for it is the old, old story,—the women are the cause of all the trouble. It seems that no self-respecting mountain girl will marry a youth who has not proved his male prowess by taking a head; and when life without a companion becomes too miserable to be endured there is nothing for the most kind-hearted young Taiyal to do but to dig or bridge his way over the electric barrier, bringing his weapons and his provisions with him, and wander up and down the border, perhaps for weeks, until the chance comes to bring home proof of his manhood. True, a human head is required on every other important occasion in savage life. A lad not only cannot win a bride but he cannot join the adults in the tribal “club-house” until he has performed this manly feat; the savages must have new skulls for the seed festival each autumn, for without them their gods would not give them good luck during the year to follow; they need them whenever they hold any religious rite or perform any of the ceremonies with which life is marked; when a dispute occurs between members of a tribe the decision goes to the one who first gets a head; the man with the most trophies in his “skull-shelf” becomes automatically the chief of his tribe. They have come to consider the custom indispensable to their existence, just as we do clothing or automobiles. Yet who can say that if the women did not force them to make that first start in the evil habit they would ever succumb to it on the later and less important occasions in life?

What a pity, too, that transportation is so costly and communication between kindred souls on opposite sides of the earth so difficult! Otherwise the head-hunters of Formosa might share the same heads with their brethren in the habit, the _jívaros_ of the upper Amazon, and either reduce by half the consumption of raw materials or double the finished product. For whereas the _jívaros_ remove all the bones and shrink the rest of the head down to the size of an orange, the Formosans care nothing for the flesh or the most comely face but prize only the bare, freshly boiled skulls. These are placed before the home of the proud hunter, upon or in a “skull-shelf,” sometimes a mere straight counter of bamboo, more often a cupboard made of slate, with a pigeonhole for each skull, quite like our post-office boxes, so that in calling upon your head-hunting friend you can tell his importance in the Taiyal scheme of things just as easily as one of our own countrymen can see whether or not there is any mail for him at last, without hindering the postmaster from weighing out sugar or cutting up plug tobacco.

But life has become bitter and drab indeed among some of the tribes of Formosa, especially near the guard-line, where they are so hard pressed by unkindly civilization that they have come perforce to be satisfied with monkey-skulls! I am not in a position to state what kind of wives these poor degenerates get, but the imagination easily pictures the old men of the tribe grumbling about the worthlessness of the new generation and telling the “club-house” that things were not like this in the good old days when men were men. The Japanese assert that their police or their troops have at one time or another been through virtually all the savage territory, in such force as was necessary, and that they have destroyed most of the “skull-shelves.” Thus monuments of art always suffer before the ruthless military conqueror! But the more genuine of the savages insist on starting new collections, and now and then it is the Japanese themselves who contribute trophies with which they have parted with the most poignant regret. The different tribes who still honor the ways of their forefathers continue to exchange heads between themselves; within the past year there are known to have been at least three Formosan Chinese heads taken, though the Japanese claim to have passed this twelvemonth without any such physical loss of face. There is no record of the savages of Formosa ever having taken a Caucasian head. It may be that they have heard rumors of recent doings in the Western world and have decided that such skulls cannot be of any use to them; or, again, the records may be incomplete, for this is one of the unkindnesses of man toward man which the victim very rarely has the face to report to the police.