760 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



abiding, who have a regular system of laws, an alphabet and 

 a literature, and are not cannibals, the adulterer, the night-rob- 

 ber, and those who traitorously attacked a city or a village, were 

 condemned to be eaten by the people. They were tied to three 

 stakes, their arms and legs stretched out to form a cross, and 

 then, at a given signal, all those present would rush up to them 

 and hack them up with hatchets and knives, or simply with their 

 nails and teeth. The torn-off pieces of flesh were eaten at once, 

 raw and bleeding, being first only dipped in a mixture composed 

 of citron-juice, salt, etc., prepared in advance in a cocoanut shell. 

 In adultery cases the husband had the right to choose the first 

 piece.* 



The Dyaks have a criminal festival associated with the pecul- 

 iar custom of head-hunting. Since in many tribes a young man 

 can not marry till he has presented a human head to his sweet- 

 heart, he hides himself in the shrubbery of the jungles and watches 

 for his victim for days at a time, till he kills him and cuts off his 

 head. Then he returns to his village and announces his triumph 

 by blowing upon the sea-shell that serves him as a hunting horn ; 

 the children and the women come out to meet him, give him an 

 ovation, and lavish upon him the most exaggerated and hyper- 

 bolical praises ; and the bleeding head is borne in great pomp to 

 the house of the chief. Before hanging it up in front of the 

 dwelling, children are caused to suck its blood, in order that they 

 may draw courage from it. Yet the Dyaks are a peaceful people, 

 for homicide is very rare within their tribes. " Not the thirst 

 for carnage, or the love of murder/' writes Temmink, " or any 

 spirit of vengeance, induces them to cut off heads. They are not 

 anthropophagic. A hereditary superstition, passed into a custom, 

 causes them to commit acts which they believe to be meritori- 

 ous." In fact, the Dyaks, like the Battas, have an undisputed 

 reputation for sincerity, frankness, and honesty. f 



It is especially religion that gives its sanction and consecrates 

 these collective crimes, by preserving them in customs associated 

 with its dogmas and rites. The Phoenician race, even when it 

 had reached the highest degree of its civilization, still retained 

 human sacrifices at Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage. The festivals of 

 Moloch were real orgies of blood ; the priests burned children in 

 honor of the god, and the people, excited by the spectacle, were 

 seized with such an agitation that many men were injured by the 

 frenzied crowd. These horrors were repeated at Upsala by the 

 Scandinavians, and at Riigen and Roncova by the ancient Slavs ; 

 yet the Scandinavians and the Slavs, although they were not so 



* Letourneau, La Sociologie d'apres 1'Ethnographie, Paris, 

 f Bertillon, Les Races sauvages, Paris. 



