There are distinct evidences of blood-relationship between the savages
of Taiwan and the inhabitants of the southern islands of Japan proper.
Japanese who have lived long in Formosa confess that they cannot tell a
head-hunter from one of their own people merely by his features. To
Westerners the mountaineers look almost exactly Japanese, except that
the eyes seem a bit more liquid, a trifle wider open, with that wild
something in them of untamed animals which distinguishes the genuine
savage the world over. Not merely do their features suggest the same
origin as their would-be rulers; they are of about the same size and
build, perhaps a bit larger, thanks to their more open-air life. It is
coming to be believed by many that they and the Japanese are both Malay
tribes which history has driven in different directions. Possibly they
are the same people, who fought their way up from the south, this branch
getting side-tracked and lost among the mountain fastnesses of Formosa
and going, or remaining, wild, while the head-hunting propensities of
the other branch turned to more modern methods. It is a captivating
thought, and would make the “Jap man’s burden” all the more
justified—merely the task of reclaiming his own lost brethren.
[Illustration: Young braves of a wild Formosan tribe, whom he who cares
to keep his head might do well to avoid meeting far from the protecting
Japanese overlords]
[Illustration: A Japanized woman from the mountain-dwelling tribes of
Formosa]
[Illustration: One might not think to look at her that her father
probably had a dozen or more trophies in his slate-built skull-cupboard]
Certainly I had to look twice to recognize that the boys in a frontier
school at one of the advance stations in Taiyal-land, dressed as they
were in uniform kimonos of black and white plaid, were not what they
seemed at first sight, but the sons of men who were recently, and in
some cases probably still are, hunting the heads of their neighbors. In
fact, there was one man among the two score boys who had the right to
wear the hawk-feather of the successful hunter, a sturdy fellow of
thirty, still with that peculiar wild-animal look in his eyes, who was
in the same primary class as his son of six. It struck me that it would
be a more thankful job to try to teach the son, an impression in which
the Japanese teacher, in his pedagogue-gendarme uniform, bore me out.
In the camphor-camps and on the plantations where they accept employment
as the first step toward giving up their chief tribal pastime, the
savages work hard and are docile; those at least who are caught young
learn moderately well in school, and they are on the whole not bad
neighbors. In fact, we should get over the strange notion that because a
man has the hobby of collecting the skulls of his fellows rather than
postage-stamps or “old masters” he cannot also be in many ways quite an
agreeable individual. I know many a man purporting to be civilized with
whom I would much less rather go off on a camping-trip than with the
fiercest head-hunter I have ever seen—once we got on a proper footing as
to the inflated value I put on my own top-piece. It is said that doctors
and teachers can go safely anywhere among them, if they carry proper and
conspicuous credentials, and provided the Japanese will let them. The
visitor who gets permission from, or evades, the government guards and
goes at once to the chief of the tribe, makes himself popular by petting
the children, treating the sick, and other forms of courtesy, until he
has convinced his hosts that he is harmless, has rather a good chance of
bringing his head back to civilization on his shoulders. Yet it is well
not to gamble too recklessly. Though I have no illusions as to the
utility of that portion of my anatomy about the neck, I several times
had the feeling in Formosa that sturdy young men with disconcertingly
piercing eyes and distressingly large knives at their waists were gazing
at it with at least mild covetousness. Yet this may have been merely the
result of a guilty conscience.
In short, they are not bad fellows, once one can overlook their little
idiosyncrasy of gathering skulls that are not yet ripe for the
garnering. They make good chauffeurs, for instance; certainly we all
know chauffeurs who would make good head-hunters, and others whom we
would be delighted to turn over to the innermost tribes of Formosa. I
have already mentioned how no small number of these naïve children of
the mountains have degenerated into rickshaw-runners, though I doubt
whether they sprint between the shafts with anything like the vim that
they did in pursuing or saving a head. Nor should we be too hard on
them; for it is the old, old story,—the women are the cause of all the
trouble. It seems that no self-respecting mountain girl will marry a
youth who has not proved his male prowess by taking a head; and when
life without a companion becomes too miserable to be endured there is
nothing for the most kind-hearted young Taiyal to do but to dig or
bridge his way over the electric barrier, bringing his weapons and his
provisions with him, and wander up and down the border, perhaps for
weeks, until the chance comes to bring home proof of his manhood. True,
a human head is required on every other important occasion in savage
life. A lad not only cannot win a bride but he cannot join the adults in
the tribal “club-house” until he has performed this manly feat; the
savages must have new skulls for the seed festival each autumn, for
without them their gods would not give them good luck during the year to
follow; they need them whenever they hold any religious rite or perform
any of the ceremonies with which life is marked; when a dispute occurs
between members of a tribe the decision goes to the one who first gets a
head; the man with the most trophies in his “skull-shelf” becomes
automatically the chief of his tribe. They have come to consider the
custom indispensable to their existence, just as we do clothing or
automobiles. Yet who can say that if the women did not force them to
make that first start in the evil habit they would ever succumb to it on
the later and less important occasions in life?
What a pity, too, that transportation is so costly and communication
between kindred souls on opposite sides of the earth so difficult!
Otherwise the head-hunters of Formosa might share the same heads with
their brethren in the habit, the _jívaros_ of the upper Amazon, and
either reduce by half the consumption of raw materials or double the
finished product. For whereas the _jívaros_ remove all the bones and
shrink the rest of the head down to the size of an orange, the Formosans
care nothing for the flesh or the most comely face but prize only the
bare, freshly boiled skulls. These are placed before the home of the
proud hunter, upon or in a “skull-shelf,” sometimes a mere straight
counter of bamboo, more often a cupboard made of slate, with a
pigeonhole for each skull, quite like our post-office boxes, so that in
calling upon your head-hunting friend you can tell his importance in the
Taiyal scheme of things just as easily as one of our own countrymen can
see whether or not there is any mail for him at last, without hindering
the postmaster from weighing out sugar or cutting up plug tobacco.
But life has become bitter and drab indeed among some of the tribes of
Formosa, especially near the guard-line, where they are so hard pressed
by unkindly civilization that they have come perforce to be satisfied
with monkey-skulls! I am not in a position to state what kind of wives
these poor degenerates get, but the imagination easily pictures the old
men of the tribe grumbling about the worthlessness of the new generation
and telling the “club-house” that things were not like this in the good
old days when men were men. The Japanese assert that their police or
their troops have at one time or another been through virtually all the
savage territory, in such force as was necessary, and that they have
destroyed most of the “skull-shelves.” Thus monuments of art always
suffer before the ruthless military conqueror! But the more genuine of
the savages insist on starting new collections, and now and then it is
the Japanese themselves who contribute trophies with which they have
parted with the most poignant regret. The different tribes who still
honor the ways of their forefathers continue to exchange heads between
themselves; within the past year there are known to have been at least
three Formosan Chinese heads taken, though the Japanese claim to have
passed this twelvemonth without any such physical loss of face. There is
no record of the savages of Formosa ever having taken a Caucasian head.
It may be that they have heard rumors of recent doings in the Western
world and have decided that such skulls cannot be of any use to them;
or, again, the records may be incomplete, for this is one of the
unkindnesses of man toward man which the victim very rarely has the face
to report to the police.