Among the Head-Hunters of Formosa

unting friends of 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, anthro

ntance with the state of culture as a whole, turn out to be, if not praiseworthy

habit would be justified, from the standpoint of the survival of the hard-pressed aborigines. Even had a threat of cannibalism 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 savages of Formosa are not so in fact. Indeed, the boot is on the other foot. I r

to try to work back to some ethnic centre of diffusion; where the[11] characteristic elements of the system, whatever might have been their remoter derivation, have been thoroughly fused together, in the course of a long process of adaptation to a given environment. Thereupon it becomes possible to follow up the propagation of influence as it radiates from this centre in various directions outwards. Now it may well be that the tradition rarely, or never, is imparted in its entirety. Selection, or sheer accident, will cause not a little to be lef

eme of values. Every culture represents a set of means whereby it is sought to realize a mode of life. Unconsciously for the most part, yet none the less actually, every human society pursues an ideal. To grasp this ideal is to possess the clue to the whole cultural process as a spiritual and vital movement. The social inheritance is subject to a constant revaluation, bringing readaptation in its train. There is a selective activity at work, and to apprehend its secret springs one must keep asking all the time, what does this people want, and want

words as we can understand the felt needs and aspirations of a less self-conscious type of humanity. Here, for instance, Mrs. McGovern, though writing for the general public, and reserving a full digest of her material for another work, has sought to present an insider's version of the aboriginal life of Formosa. She was willing to become an initiate, and did in fact become so, almost overshooting the mark, as it were, throug

lary, I suggest, is that, to preserve a people, one must preserve its ideal so far as to leave its vital and vitalizing elements intact. In other words, in purging that ideal, as may be done and ought to be done when it is sought to lift a backward people out of savagery, great care should be taken not to wreck their whole scheme of values, to cause all that has hitherto made life worth living for them to seem cheap and futile. Given sympathetic insight into their dream of the good life-one that is, probably, not unlike ours in its main essentials-it ought to prove feasible to curtail noxious practices by substituting better ways of satisfyin

ett.