To treat her as a goddess has always been accounted a sure way of winning a lady’s favour. To the cynic, therefore, it might seem that Mrs. McGovern was bound to speak well of her head-hunting friends of the Formosan hills, seeing that they welcomed her with a respect that bordered on veneration¹. But of other head-hunters, hailing, say, from Borneo or from Assam, anthropologists have reported no less well, and that though the investigators³ were accorded no divine honours. The key to a just estimate of savage⁴ morality is knowledge of all the conditions. A custom that considered in itself is decidedly revolting may, on further acquaintance with the state of culture as a whole, turn out to be, if not praiseworthy, at least a drawback incidental to a normal phase of the ruder life of mankind.

The “grizzled warrior,” we are told, who made oblation⁵ to our authoress, bore on his chin the honourable⁶ mark of the man-slayer. To her Chinese coolie that formidable badge would have been enough to proclaim the wearer seban—the kind of wicked animal that defends itself when attacked. Thus, if it merely served to warn an[10] invading alien to keep his distance, this crude advertisement of a head-hunting habit would be justified⁸, from the standpoint of the survival of the hard-pressed aborigines. Even had a threat of cannibalism⁹ been thrown in, its protective value could hardly be denied; for, much as men object to be killed, they commonly deem it worse to be killed and eaten. Though reputed to be man-eaters, however, the savages¹⁰ of Formosa are not so in fact. Indeed, the boot is on the other foot. I remember Mr. Shinji Ishii telling us at a meeting of the Folk-lore Society that, despite their claim to a higher form of civilization, the Chinese of the adjoining districts will occasionally partake of a head-hunter, chopped up small and disguised in soup: the principle implied in the precaution being, I dare say, sound enough, namely, that of

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