11. Head-Hunting in the BalkansAuthor(s): M. Edith DurhamReviewed work(s):Source: Man, Vol. 23 (Feb., 1923), pp. 19-21Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2788856 .Accessed: 20/01/2012 16:10

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February, 1923.] MAN. [Nos. 10-11.

The correlation is quite reasonably secure in each case. Now, in Eastern England the Cromer Forest Bed is equivalent to the Tegelen plant-bearing clays, and therefore corresponds with the Giinz-Mindel stage (I do not like the word " Interglacial " here). The North Sea Drift at least is, therefore, Mindelian in age. The important question now arises as to whether there was an interglacial between the North Sea Drift and the Chalky Boulder Clay. If there was not, the latter is also Mindelian; if there was an Interglacial, the Chalky Boulder Clay is Rissian.

When I first worked out the relationship of the British and Continental deposits in 1914-1915, I considered the former to be the true correlation* and on re-considera- tion I am still inclined to this view, but admit that proof is difficult.

I see that Mr. H. J. E. Peaket places the Chalky Boulder Clay later than the Middle Terrace of the Thames, but there is some evidence that the Boulder Clay is older even than the 130-foot terrace. The high and middle terraces of the Thames valley are closely paralleled by the upper and lower raised beaches of the Sussex ,coast,? both connected with cold periods, but with an intervening mild period, and the lower beach connects up with the Seine valley and hence with the Alps. The high terrace is thus shown to be Mindel and Mindel-Riss. This supports the Mindelian age of the Chalky Boulder Clay. Both (a) and (b) thus point very strongly against the possibility that the Chalky Boulder Clay can be of Wurmian age.

There is one point about Mr. Peake's scheme which calls for remark, and that is the association of the 25-foot beach in Scotland with the corrie glaciers. In north- east Ireland the 25-foot beach is associated with a fauna warmer than the present, and the corresponding beach on the opposite coast of Scotland must be of the same age. C. E. P. BROOKS.

Balkanis: Ethnography. Durham. Head-hunting in the Balkans. By M. Edith Durham. 1

Head-hunting, studied usually in distant lands, flourished in Europe well 11 into the middle of the 19th century and is not yet quite extinct. When I travelled in Montenegro at the beginning of the present century all the elderly men could, and did, tell tales of the heads that they or their friends had taken. My guide confessed, with shame and humiliation, that he had not taken a single one in the war of 1877, pleading that he was only seventeen, and was severely told that others, even younger, had done better. Every man in earlier days went to war or to a border fray intending to take as many heads as he could. The short heavy " hanzhar " was used for the purpose. Never for stabbing. An expert severed the head at one blow. If two Montenegrins both wounded the same man, the head " legally " belonged to the man who took first blood. I was told of cases in which a dispute followed about the head and that the rival claimants have been known to fight each other for it to the death. The reasons for head-taking were given as " to show " how brave you are " and " to shame the enemy." I gathered that it was also supposed to affect the future life of the enemy. But whether it would prevent it altogether I could not learn. That it was formerly believed to do so seems probable, as I heard grisly tales of heroic women who crawled over the border at night and, with danger and difficulty, brought back their husbands' heads in order to bury them with the bodies.

Blood vengeance raged between Montenegrin, Turk and Albanian, and for one head many would be taken. The heads were tied by the lock of hair left on them to the neck or belt of the warrior. A Ragusan lady gave me her grandfather's

* Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Institution, 1917, pp. 277-374. t MAN, 1922, 5. 1 Sherlock and Noble in Q.J. Geol. Soc., 1912, p. 199. ? C. Reid in Q. J. Geol. Soc., 48, 1892, pp. 344-364.

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No. 11.] MAN. [February, 1923.

vivid account of the horror produced there when the Russians enlisted Montenegrins to fight the French troops during the Napoleonic wars, and how the wild inrush of yelling Montenegrins, with decapitated French heads dripping and dangling from belt and neck, struck terror into Napoleon's hardened troops. Till recently the heads of all Serbs, Montenegrins and Albanians were shaven and a long lock, plait, or two side tufts only left. The reason popularly given for this custom was that if the head was completely shaven the only way to carry it was by hooking your finger in its mouth. If you were a Christian you would not like a Moslem finger stuck in. Nor would a Moslem like an unclean Christian finger. Hence a handle was left. The reason is improbable, but the tale is of interest as showing that a large proportion of the people were accustomed to the idea of having their heads carried away! The mediaeval ballads of the Serbs give plenity of examples of head-cutting and narrate mainly the slaying of chieftains by chieftains. To realise the wholesale head-taking of recent times we must refer to the ballads of Grand Voyvoda Mirko, father of the late King of Montenegro, who gives very precise details. Thus, in " The Slaying " of Chulek Beg, 1852," after the fight they " counted out three hundred Turkish " heads. Among them that of Chulek Beg . . . . Off went the Serbs singing " and carrying Turkish turbans and glittering clothing and the Turkish heads on

oaken stakes and Chulek's head among them." In the fight at Drobnjak, 1855, " As the Turks rushed from the burning tower

the young Montenegrins seized them and cut off the head of each. And lo and behold the three Mladitches, carrying dead Turkish heads . . . . and they said to Serdar Bogdan of the frontier 'Here, 0 Serdar, have we cut off for thee

fifty Turkish heads and taken all their clothing.' "

In the " Slaying of Betchko Agimanitch" to avenge one Montenegrin twelve Turks are killed. " Then with the Turks' clothes and weapons and the heads " upon oaken stakes they marched back to the village of Markovitch and set up

eleven heads before the white tower of the Serdar and Betchko's head they carried to Cetinje to the tower above the Monastery where up till now many Turkish heads have been impaled and a many more shall be, God willing,-heads of Pashas and Vizirs, of Agas and Begs . . . . A fine booty was this of Serdar Scepan and great honour did he gain. God grant him long life ! "

Sir Gardner Wilkinson, who went as British Envoy to Montenegro in 1848, broke it gently to Prince Nikola (as he then was) that the sight of so many heads on a tower in the capital was unpleasant to British envoys. But the-practice continued and a dried head was kept in the Monastery after public exhibition had ceased.

In " The Avenging of Pope Radisav " we find thirty-three heads taken to avenge one man. "They cut off thirty-three heads. Not the devil a one did they let

live . . . And they went to Bijelopavlitch, above the bloody town of Spuzh [then in Turkish possession], carrying the heads on stakes, and stuck them up that the Turkish wives and women of the town might see them and know they were a monument to Pope Radisav. May the ravens and crows claw the heads and the foxes tear them! "

These were border frays. More serious work was put in at Kolashin in 1858. Here, 1,000 heads were cut off. " I was on Kum mountain and I saw it myself," adds the poet proudly. In the Slaying of Selim Pasha in 1862, 1,600 heads are taken, including those of the Pasha and his two sons, and carried in triumph. In the fight at Nikshitch the same year the score is 3,700. It is noteworthy that a share of the booty, some fine swords or horses, were usually sent to the Prince (the late King of Montenegro) after every big affair. That the heads were cut from dead bodies and from the wounded is shown by " The Fight at Martinitch, 1862 :" " By

the time they had driven the Turks back on Spuzh they had cut off 600 heads,

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February, 1923.1 MAN. [Nos. 11-12,

and mortally wounded 1,000 men whom the Turks carried away that the Serbs might not cut off their heads too."

The last heads that I heard of as being cut off were those of three Montenegrins killed in a border fight just preparatory to the first Balkan war in August, 1912. I spoke with a nephew of one of the decapitated. He took it very calmly and seemed to think it might happen to anybody's uncle. During the war which followed nose- taking was substituted by the Montenegrins for head-taking and a great deal went on. I saw nine of the victims. The nasal bone was hacked right through and the whole upper lip removed as well as the nose. The trophy was carried by the moustache. It is only fair to the Turks to say that I did not see or hear of a single case of a mutilated Montenegrin. The practice was to go round the battle-field and cut the nose, and in some cases also castrate, the wounded, who usually died of the additional shock and hvemorrhage.

The desire to take a trophy was so great that a wounded Montenegrin whose hands were disabled would sometimes seize his enemy's nose with his teeth and try to bite it off. A Montenegrin gendarme told me how, in the war of 1877, he had thus made a supreme effort, had been cut down, and on recovering consciousness m a Russian field hospital found, to his intense joy, the nose in his breeches pocket, a friend having generously cut it off for him!

I once stopped a terrible fight on the road between Cattaro and Njegus, in which one man had his teeth firmly fixed in the other's nose and was hanging on like a bulldog, while the blood dripped freely from the ends of his enemy's long moustache.

Turning to the best collection of old Montenegrin ballads, Ogledalo Srpsko, we find many more examples of head-taking, and further confirmation of the fact that the dead heads were worn by the triumphant victors. Thus in " The Slaying of Bechir Beg Bushatli," " the Krajitchnitzi, those grey falcons, charged down on the

rest of the Turks and cut off fifty heads . . . . They then turned back towards home decked out with Turkish heads and many Turkish weapons - . - . and they carried the heads to Cetinje and ornamented Cetinje with them." This in 1839.

In the case of mighty Pashas I was told it was sometimes customary to salt the head to make it keep the longer.

I could multiply instances, but have given sufficient to show the ardour with which head-hunting was pursued in Europe, within five days of London, during the lifetime of many of us. M. EDITH DURHAM.

America, North: Ethnography. Parsons. The Hopi Buffalo Dance. By Elsie C(ews Parsons. fE

The Buffalo Dance (mushe8shtih)* was danced at Sichumovi on Saturday L and Sunday, 20th-21st November. The days of the week happened to be important because the little children, the school children, were to dance the first day; the second day was for the older girls and boys. I reached the mesa after the conclusion of the first day's dance. About seven o'clock we heard an announcement called from a house door near by. " That is your father calling to come to the kiva," said my host. Sihtaime, of the patki clan, soyala mungwi, chief of the winter solstice ceremony, is my " father," his own sister and several clan sisters having washed my head and given me patki clan names. Sihtaime was the head or chief of the dance (mushe6sh mungwi) because, I was told,t he had assembled the men for it, an act volunteered.

Presently two of the men engaged, G'awehtima, the husband of Sihtaime's father's sister's daughter (and chief of the w&wochim ceremony and of the salako

* Mu8shaia8ti, according to Fewkes. My informant, a Tewa, speaks Hopi with a foreign accent. For one thing s he pronounces sh.

t But see p. 26, where a less fortuitous connection is suggested.

E 21 )