MUNIZ—MC GEE] TREPHINING AFFECTED BY BELIEFS . 23 
Understanding primitive motives and mental traits, and the modes of 
thought which they retlect, it is not difficult to discover the origin, or at 
least a quite early stage in the development, of post-mortem trephining; 
and it is possible to buttress on this basis a partly hypothetic bridge 
spanning the chasm between post-mortem vicarious operations and 
ante-mortem trephining, both thaumaturgic and therapeutic. When, 
in the stage of amulet wearing and synecdochism, the warring tribes- 
man slew an enemy, he sometimes mutilated the remains and even ate of 
the heart, not only in savage triumph, but mainly in order that he might 
gain the courage and strength of his quondam opponent; and partly 
as a trophy, but chiefly as a mystical talisman and constant invocation 
to the powers, he appended the scalp to his spear or belt, or strung the 
teeth in a necklace, or converted the erstwhile powerful hand into a 
gorget. This stage and custom are well known among the primitive 
peoples of the earth. Reaching a little way into the unknown from this 
buttress of the known, it is easy to see that, save perhaps in the driest 
climates, the indecomposable teeth would be found more satisfactory 
talismans than the decomposable scalp or hand, and that, through nat- 
ural association, the durable skull lying just beneath the evanescent 
scalp of the mutilated body might easily come to be drawn upon for 
the amulet trophy. This inference lies close to established fact, since 
it is well known that certain primitive tribes preserve the entire or 
mutilated heads of enemies slain in battle. It is but another easy step 
to the stage in which one or more pieces of the skull (for in syneedo- 
chism the piece carries the virtue of the whole) of the slain enemy were 
used as amulets, either as supplementary to or as substitutes for the 
teeth. Here again the structure of explanation rests on the firm 
ground of established fact, as revealed through study of the prehistoric; 
for it is well known that post-mortem trephining was extensively prac- 
ticed in certain cases during prehistorie times, and that the rondelles 
obtained thereby were worn and treasured after the manner of amulets. 
Thus, in this stage, trephining must have been performed with a defi- 
nite motive, under the zootheistic belief that the slain warrior vicariously 
strengthened his slayer. It is probable—nay, certain, as archeologic 
record indicates—that the grisly custom strengthened through exercise 
and extended to the taking and prizing of amulets from other skulls 
than those of enemies slain in battle, so that the custom matured in a 
cult of morbid and revolting character, in which the growing sacred- 
ness of the human body under synecdochic mysticism played an 
important part. 
Here a span in the explanation-structure fails, yet the chasm is not 
too broad and deep for easy crossing on the scaffolding afforded by 
study of primitive ideation: The keynote to zootheism is the animate 
power or self-motility of animals, whereby they are exalted above all self- 
moveless things; and thus to the zootheist, dominated by synecdochism, 
the talisman taken from the wounded enemy, while still living, was 
immeasurably more potent than that taken from the dead enemy; and 
