Ebook Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa

TO treat her as a goddess has always been ac counted 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 oi the Formosan hills, seeing that they welcomed her With a respect that bordered on veneration. But of other head-hunters, hailing, say, from Borneo or from Assam, anthropologists have reported no less well, and that though the investigators were accorded no divine' honours. The key to a just estimate of savage 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.