


126 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
one had killed a man. Embroidered borders are said to 
have been added after the warrior had slain seven 
human beings, and long loose cords or fringes were 
reserved for the specially valiant. The Sambal are said 
to have worn a special head cloth as a sign of mourning 
until they released themselves by killing a foe or 
stranger, much as the Bisaya cut their hair and ate no 
rice or cooked food after the death of a relative until 
they had obtained a similar absolution. The pagans of 
Mindanao follow analogous customs today: in place of 
the potong, they use a square kerchief, but among nearly 
all of them only he may wear a cloth dyed in a certain 
shade of red who has taken the necessary number of lives. 
This, then, is the native headdress which the hat has 
tended to replace as Christianity prevailed and the 
old customs of killing and head-hunting fell into disuse 
as social insignia. Under this view, the small hats of the 
interior tribes of Luzon become very interesting. Some 
of these groups remained wholly without contact with 
the Spaniards or at least sufficiently aloof to take 
nothing over from them directly. Their miniature hats 
accordingly would seem to represent a development of 
their own customs; which however occurred only after 
they had received the necessary stimulus through the 
example of their more affected neighbors. 
As to the head cloth, it is somewhat difficult to form 
a just historic appraisal. Mohammedanism is at once 
suggested. It is however entirely possible that the usage 
antedates the introduction of this faith. The connec- 
tion of the head cloth with martial prowess is of course 
not Mohammedan, but typically Malaysian. Customs 
of this type are in fact so deeply ingrained in the 
aboriginal culture of the East Indies that one would be 
inclined to look for a considerably greater antiquity of 
the potong than the period of the first introduction of 

