54 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by bringing back some part of him especially a part which the corpse 

 could not yield in duplicate he raises his character in the tribe and 

 increases his power. Preservation of trophies, with a view to display 

 and consequent strengthening of personal influence, therefore becomes 

 an established custom. In Ashantee " the smaller joints, bones, and 

 teeth of the slain are worn by the victors about their persons." Among 

 the Ceris and Opatas of North Mexico, " many cook and eat the flesh 

 of their captives, reserving the bones as trophies." And another Mex- 

 ican race, " the Chichimecs, carried with them a bone on which, when 

 they killed an enemy, they marked a notch, as a record of the num- 

 ber each had slain." The meaning of trophy-taking, and its social 

 effects, being recognized, let us consider in groups the various forms 

 of it. 



Of parts cut from the bodies of the slain, heads are the common- 

 est ; probably as being the most unmistakable proofs of victory. 



We need not go far afield for illustrations both of the practice and 

 its motives. The most familiar of books contains them. In Judges 

 vii. 25, we read: " And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb 

 and Zeeb ; and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they 

 slew at the wine-press of Zeeb, and pursued Midian, and brought the 

 heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan." The 

 decapitation of Goliath by David, followed by carrying of his head to 

 Jerusalem, further illustrates the custom. And, if, by so superior a 

 race, heads' were taken home as trophies, we shall not wonder at find- 

 ing the custom of so taking them among inferior races all over the 

 globe. By the Chichimecs in North America " the heads of the slain 

 were placed on poles and paraded through their villages in token of 

 victory, the inhabitants meanwhile dancing round them." In South 

 America, by the Abipones, heads are brought back from battle "tied 

 to their saddles ; " and the Mundrucus "ornament their rude and mis- 

 erable cabanas with these horrible trophies." Of Malay o-Polynesians 

 having a like habit, may be named the New-Zealanders; they dry 

 and treasure up the heads of their slain foes. In Madagascar, during 

 Queen Ranavalona's reign, heads raised on poles were placed along 

 the coast. Skulls of enemies are preserved as trophies by the natives 

 on the Congo, and by other African peoples: "The skull and thigh- 

 bones of the last monarch of Dinkira are still trophies of the court of 

 Ashantee." Among the Hill-tribes of India, the Kukis may be in- 

 stanced as having this practice. Morier tells us that in Persia, under 

 the stimulus of money-payments, " prisoners" (of war) " have been put 

 to death in cold blood, in order that the heads, which are immediate- 

 ly dispatched to the king and deposited in heaps at the palace-gate, 

 might make a more considerable show." And that among other 

 Asiatic races head-taking persists spite of semi-civilization, we are 

 reminded by the recent doings of the Turks, who have in some cases 

 exhumed the bodies of slain foes and decapitated them. 



