Head-hunting in Indonesia

Abstract

I here have been many explanations offered in the past for the ^ | custom of head-hunting. These range from the theory, suggested by Tylor and Wilken, among others, that heads were taken for the services which their owners would henceforth perform for their vanquishers in this life or the next1 ) , and the "soul-substance" theory of Kruyt, according to which heads were taken for the "... . fine, etherial substance which animates, makes live, all nature... . " contained in them 2 ) , to the more modern functionalistic approach, which offers no explanation of the customs as such, but confines itself to demonstrating the psychological and sociological functions of the activity 3 ) . The idea that the custom was animated by a desire to obtain spiritual servants seems to have lost its popularity. The "soul-substance" theory, however, in spite of its having been long since abandóned by Kruyt himself and a belief in the very idea of "soul-substance" not having been demonstrated for the Indonesian peoples, is still adhered to 4 ) . All of these approaches are unsatisfactory, I believe, in that they are "rationalistic" and one-sided, and thus fail to see the head-hu