Introduction to headhunting for headhunters

Also known as headhunting (猎首), ancient Chinese as馘首, it refers to the practice of cutting off the head of a person and collecting it after killing him or her. The practice of headhunting was popular in many ancient civilizations, including the ancient Chinese, Taiwanese aborigines, Japanese, Nuristanis in Afghanistan, Assamese and Nagalanders in India, Burmese, Borneans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Micronesians, Melanesians, New Zealand Maoris, Indians of the Amazon Plains and the U.S. Great Plains, Nigerians, Celts in Europe, and the American Indians of the Great Plains, Nigerians, Celts and Scythians in Europe, and so on. The practice of headhunting was still practiced in the Pacific Theater as late as World War II, but is largely extinct worldwide today.

In anthropology, the role of headhunting in society has been a hot topic of discussion. Contemporary scholars generally agree that headhunting is a ritual that once played a key role in the formation, reinforcement, and maintenance of hierarchies of social groups and individuals. Some anthropologists have theorized that the practice of headhunting stems from the religious belief that "the soul resides in the skull," and that headhunting is an attempt to bring back and ultimately conquer the souls of enemies. In anthropological writings, the immediate reasons for the head-hunting behavior include humiliating the opponent, counting battle achievements, completing certain rituals, maintaining astrological equilibrium, and demonstrating masculinity, bravery, bloodlust, and prestige, to name a few. According to oracle bone inscriptions unearthed in Yinxu, Henan Province, the custom of headhunting was practiced in China during the Shang Dynasty. The Shang people beheaded the captured chiefs of foreigners as human sacrifices, and after sacrificing to their ancestors, they used their skulls to carve words to remember the events as a reminder of their victories, which was known as "human skull carving".

By the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, headhunting was on the rise in China. According to Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian", in the Spring and Autumn period, after Zhao Xiangzi of the State of Jin attacked and killed Zhixiangzi, he cut off Zhixiangzi's head, carved it with lacquer, and used it as the head of a drinking cup. In the southern state of Chu, the folk custom of head-hunting was recorded in Qu Yuan's "Chu Rhetoric" in the chapters of "National Gothic" and "Soul of Ceremony". The state of Qin, after the change of the law in Shang Yang stipulated that the soldiers' military achievements were always calculated by the number of enemy heads that were captured and brought back, and the calculation of the merits was also very fair. This rule made the Qin army's morale greatly enhanced, and its ferocity made soldiers from all over the world feel scared of it. It has been argued that headhunting played an important role in Qin's war against the six kingdoms.

This method of calculating the merits of a battle was also passed down in China until the end of the Cold War era, when it largely disappeared. Famous examples of headhunting include the head of Guan Yu, the Shu general of the Three Kingdoms, which was sent to Cao Cao immediately after he was captured and executed by Sun Quan. In ancient Japanese warfare, one-on-one combat was often fought by samurai. Before the battle, both sides informed each other of their names and then fought a duel. When the opponent was killed, the samurai cut off his head and sent it to the army for inspection. They were then rewarded according to the status of the enemy they had killed. This is known as "Shosoji" in Japanese.

In the "Yongzhou Fu Zhi - ten - tomb", there is a record of the Japanese head of the actual inspection: "Where the dynasty soldiers, the enemy's head is said to take the head. Or high name, according to the high loyalty to get the name of the martial arts is also said. The enemy's belongings or armor or knife, etc., to add the first to take it, so-called points to take the high name. In Japanese custom, one kind is called one point. In Japanese custom, one kind of thing is called a point, and one kind of thing is taken according to it, so it is called a point to take. The head of the enemy is brought into the master's list, which is called the actual inspection, and the meaning of the military reality is checked. Remember how much the first book, called the first post." The tradition of head hunting is found among many South Island peoples of Southeast Asia and Melanesia. The anthropological literature contains more detailed accounts of the head-hunting practices of tribes such as the Ilonggos of the modern Philippines, the Iban and Barawan of Sarawak, the Daya of Kalimantan (Borneo), the Wana of Melanesia, and the Mapurundo of southwestern Sulawesi. In most of these tribes, the hunting of the enemy's head is a religious ritual rather than an act of war. Headhunting usually marked the end of mourning by tribal members for those killed in battle on their side. Participation in a headhunt can be a sign of adulthood for male members of the clan, and clan leaders reward clan members based on the number of heads hunted.

Kenneth George, in his study of the Mapurendo people, found that their annual head-hunt had evolved into a purely religious ceremony in which coconuts were substituted for the actual heads, known as pangngae. pangngae". Held every year during the rice harvest, the ceremony serves the purposes of showcasing the differences and debates among different tribal cultures, displaying masculine beauty, distributing public ****, and resisting the assimilation of foreign civilizations into the Maputo civilization, among others.

The Ilonggos' head-hunting tradition in the Philippines was abolished in the 1930s by the U.S. authorities, which governed the Philippines at the time. In Sarawak, on the other hand, the practice of head-hunting was banned in the 1830s by order of Sir James Brooke. Ancient European Celtic headhunting was also associated with religion, but the exact purpose is still unknown. Both the ancient Romans and the ancient Greeks have accounts of the Celtic custom of nailing the heads of their personal enemies to the walls of their homes or hanging them under the necks of their horses. The Gaelic people of Scotland continued this custom for a long time, and it was probably abandoned after their conversion to Christianity. In the Germanic and Iberian tribes also have the custom of head-hunting, but the reason is still not identified.