subjected to a desiccatory process, and his bones kept. In all funeral rites in this area I see a double motive at work, affection and respect for the dead as well as fear, not only of mortal contagiosity, but also of malignant ghostly activity. Head-hunting may serve a double purpose. It may be piacular and propitiatory, intended both to placate the powerful ghost and to prevent danger. In another aspect I venture to compare it with the interesting rites to which the Lusheis give the name ai, a term which, as a noun, is defined by the authors of the Lushei dictionary[1] as meaning "the power of fascinating, charming, or getting power over," and, as a verb, as meaning "to perform a ceremony in order to get the spirit of a wild animal killed in the chase into one's power after death." An ai ceremony is performed by a living person for his own benefit after death. A domesticated animal is killed, and by the sacrifice and by a rite which is described by my friend. Colonel Shakespear, C.I.E., D.S.O., in a paper before the Anthropological Institute not yet published, the successful hunter gets power over the spirit of the animals he has killed. Is the human victim,—a stranger always,—a slave sometimes,—a Bengali sometimes,—killed by the community as a solemn communal act in order that it may get some power over, remain in possession, as it were, of, the great man who has been reft from them? In life he was a great one of this earth. It would, therefore, be to their advantage as a community to keep in touch with such an one. This is at least in part the motive for preserving the bones of the chief with jealous care.
I must confess that I have often regretted my ignorance of ethnology when making my enquiries in this interesting area, but among the interrogatories in my questionnaire was one relating to head-hunting, and I can even now
- ↑ J. H. Loirain and F. N. Savidge, A Grammar and Dictionary of the Lushai Language (Dulien dialect), p. 54.
