Imagine a time when getting thwacked by a head hunter was a real possibility. Unbelievably, this was a possibility even in the early 1900s, as this article published in 1902 shows.
DYAK HEAD HUNTERS
Civilization Unable to Stamp Out Dreadful Custom in Borneo.
The dreadful custom among the Dyak natives of Borneo of hunting for the heads of fellow creatures has unhappily not yet been quite stamped out.
There is, unfortunately, strong reason to believe in a story current among the Sea Dyaks dwelling along the banks of the Batang Eupar river, in Sarawak (the district of Borneo ruled over by Rajah Brooke) that the town of Lobo Antu, near the source of this stream, and hardly twenty miles distant from the frontier lines of Dutch Borneo, has been invaded and raided by a force of Land Dyak tribes from that country and about twenty or thirty of the peaceful inhabitants ruthlessly murdered.
What lends color to the gruesome story, says the New York Press, is the fact that, although preparations are being hurriedly made in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, for a strong expeditionary force to be sent into the interior, great secrecy as to its purpose and destination is maintained by the official authorities.
The custom of head hunting is as old as the hills among the Dyaks, and is similar to the scalp hunting of the Indians. The belief among the Dyaks is that every head captured in one of these inhuman raids, after it has undergone a process of cleansing and ritual at the hands of the medicine men, becomes a martial spirit for the individual and tribe whom it has unluckily fallen a victim. Great jealousy exists among the tribes with regard to the numbers each can muster for war, and if any tribe is in this respect inferior it at once sallies forth to remedy the defect in this gruesome manner.
Individual head hunting exists, also. The heads gained by these individual sportsmen becoming for the most part votive offerings at the shrines of Love. It is no uncommon thing for a young Dyak lady to refuse to entertain proposals from her lovers till a certain number of these horrible trophies can be laid at her feet.
In spite of the most stringent police regulations this fearful custom still exists, but it speaks well for the administrative powers of Rajah C. Brooke that in Sarawak itself head hunting seldom occurs, and if it does, as in the case of the last dreadful incident, the delinquents come usually from the dominions outside his jurisdiction. [Source]
