EVOLUTION OF CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 547 



This last instance draws attention to the fact that this barbarous 

 custom has been, and is, carried to the greatest extremes, along 

 with militancy the most excessive. Among ancient examples there 

 are the doings of Timour, with his exaction of 90,000 heads 

 from Bagdad. Of modern examples the most notable comes from 

 Dahomey. "The sleeping-apartment of a Dahoman king," says 

 Burton, " was paved with the skulls of neighboring princes and 

 chiefs, placed there that the king might tread upon them." And, 

 according to Dalzel, the king's statement, that "his house wanted 

 thatch," was "used in giving orders to his generals to make war, 

 and alludes to the custom of placing the heads of the enemy killed 

 in battle, or those of the prisoners of distinction, on the roofs of the 

 guard-houses at the gates of his palaces." 



But now, ending instances, let us observe how this taking of 

 heads as trophies initiates a means of strengthening political power ; 

 how it becomes a factor in sacrificial ceremonies ; and how it enters 

 into social intercourse as a controlling influence. That the pyramids 

 and towers of heads built by Timour at Bagdad and Aleppo, must 

 have conduced to his supremacy by striking terror into the subju- 

 gated, as well as by exciting dread of vengeance for insubordination 

 among his followers, cannot be doubted; and that living in a dwelling 

 paved and decorated with skulls, implies, in a Dahoman king, a 

 character generating fear among enemies and obedience among sub- 

 jects, is obvious. In Northern Celebes, where, before 1822, " human 

 skulls were the great ornaments of the chiefs' houses," these proofs of 

 victory in battle, used as symbols of authority, could not fail to exer- 

 cise a governmental effect. 



That heads are offered in propitiation of the dead, and that the 

 ceremony of offering them is thus made part of a quasi-worship, 

 there are clear proofs. One is supplied by the people just named. 

 "When a chief died his tomb must be adorned with two fresh human 

 heads, and if those of enemies could not be obtained slaves were 

 killed for the occasion." Among the Dyaks, who, though in many 

 respects advanced, have retained this barbarous practice sanctified by 

 tradition, it is the same : " the aged warrior could not rest in his grave 

 till his relatives had taken a head in his name." By the Kukis of 

 Northern India sacrificial head-taking is carried still further. Making 

 raids into the plains to procure heads, they "have been known in one 

 night to carry off fifty. These are used in certain ceremonies per- 

 formed at the funerals of the chiefs, and it is always after the death 

 of one of their rajahs that these incursions occur." 



That the possession of these grisly tokens of success gives an 

 influence in social intercourse, proof is yielded by the following 

 passage from St. John : " Head-hunting is not so much a religious 

 ceremony among the Pakatans, Borneo, as merely to show their 

 bravery and manliness. When they quarrel, it is a constant phrase, 



