ch. xiv.] A Dtistm Head-house. 287 



August 19th. — First thing this morning I heard that 

 our buffalo, which had been turned loose to graze on the 

 green here, is missing. All the men went to seek it while 

 we ate our breakfast. "Kurow" had so often tried to 

 induce me to exchange this animal — a female — for a male 

 of his own that I was for a time suspicious of his having 

 stolen it during the night. We had intended to start for 

 Koung to-day, but the loss of our buffalo will detain us, 

 as we cannot well leave without it, partly on account of 

 its use to me now that my feet are raw and tender, and 

 partly because it will not do to allow a theft to pass un- 

 punished. A Dusun woman brought in a basket of fresh 

 ginger roots this morning, which I find is cultivated by 

 these people. Several fowls and some rice were also 

 brought in, and these my "boy " bought in exchange for 

 our old biscuit tins and glass bottles. During our forced 

 delay I walked out to take a last look at the village, and 

 to make a few sketches and notes. In the little flat- 

 topped hut, which served as a head-house, I found a pile 

 of about fifty skulls in one corner, some being in a basket 

 suspended on the wall. These, the villagers tell me, are 

 the skulls of their old enemies, and their individuality 

 seemed well known to one old man, who pointed out 

 several to me as having once rested on the shoulders of 

 some of the Chinese settlers, who, some few years ago, 

 disappeared from this Dusun country altogether, although 

 their peculiar physiognomy still lingers among the Dusun 

 tribes into which they married, so that it is just possible 

 that they became absorbed into the native tribes. Others 

 were pointed out as the heads of their old foes the Lamm, 

 whom the Dusun people detest, say that they formerly 

 came up to the hills with the ostensible purpose of trad- 

 ing, but adding, that they really wanted to steal their 

 children as slaves. I offered " Boloung " a good Tower 



