HEAD HUNTING

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 485, 15 October 1928, Page 11

HEAD HUNTING

SAVAGES’ LITTLE WAYS j RELIGIOUS CUSTOMS Professor A E. Heath, of Swansea,, i would destroy the hair-raising aspect jof head-hunting savages who have j | provided so many thrills for the small' j boy, says the “Manchester Guardian.” | ! Addressing the summer school of the ! British Social Hygiene Council at i | Cambridge recently, he declared that I ! head-hunters were not bloodthirsty. ! It was extremely difficult, he said, to get rid of head-hunting in a certain part of the Empire. “When they forbade the practice of ■ ; t young man going to a neighbouring village and capturing a head there was an outcry because the young women protested that they had no means of judging whether a young man was worth while or not. ‘Where were his heads?’ they asked. If he could show- his prizes they knew what they were getting in the marriage market. Some bright person suggested that instead of capturing a head they should collect unharmed a wild boar. It was much more difficult and called for at least as much skill and courage. That worked perfectly reasonably.” Professor Heath said that the busi- i

ness of head-hunting did not arise our of any peculiar bloodthirstiness. It I was part of a body of moral, religious i and social beliefs and customs. ‘‘On the whole head-hunters. I think, are ! rather less bloodthirsty than other tribes where the p ractiee does not ' hold good." Handshaking was a mere habit now and its origin was a custom, forgot- , ten. He shook hands with the dirt < ! tor on arrival in the hall. The reason ! for it was that he took his dagger ; hand in his and therefore was sater thau he would have been if he had j not done so. | Professor Heath's subject was 1 “Mental hindrances to human develop i inent,” and he said that there were | plenty of physical hindrances with i which meu seemed to be able to cope more or less successfully. The mental ones he could not deal with com pletely. If anyone had toothache it was just as well not to try an pntisuggestion that he had not, but to go to the dentist. He quoted a phrase. “Obesity is an adipose belief in one self as a substance," and said that he had no patience whatever with a suggestion that mental activity could perform that kind of miracle. “The nonsense about Peter Panism is dreadful wheu you come to think of it," said the Professor. “I have never yet met a boy who would answer the question. ‘What do you want to be when you grow older?' with ‘I do not want to grow older.’ ’’ People were ruined,by too close and too firm an attitude to life determined by family or parents. if he had the choice between casual parents and those who were overioud ho would choose the former.