Note: The names of the characters have been changed. In addition, this gruesome and disturbing legend is not suitable for young readers. The names of the main characters have been changed.
Years ago in Taiwan, Wei, a young member of an Atayal community, was left with a severe dilemma.
For the past two years, he and Lu, a lovely young woman considered as beautiful as a wild orchid, were an "item." They were in love, and Wei certainly expected to marry Lu. There was a problem, however, that had been slowly smoldering, threatening these marriage plans, and this problem had driven a wedge between the two young lovers, forcing them to meet in secret so that Lu and her family would not be subjected to ridicule.
The problem was this: Wei did not have a warrior's headhunting tattoo on his forehead as opposed to virtually all the other desirable young men of the village. That meant Wei totally lacked the prestige and potential to be the great husband all parents would desire for their daughters. Such young men as Wei were looked down upon as weak and unmanly. What's more, Wei, having grown up in this environment, just didn't have it in his heart to kill any stranger for the latter's head. It just wasn't in his nature. Lu knew this and was frank with Wei. She told him clearly that either he become recognized as a headhunter with the telltale tattoo or that they would have no future together despite her love for him.
Wei had to make a very difficult decision: to join in the next headhunting campaign and to bring back someone's head or to forever lose his chance to marry Lu.
He gnashed his teeth in anguish and finally decided to go against his own nature: he would take part in the next headhunting expedition.
Wei's father, whose other two sons had already taken heads, was overjoyed. He had long given up on Wei's ever ascending to real manhood by becoming a headhunter, but now it appeared that Wei had had a reawakening.
"Yes!" said the father. "My good son! Excellent! We will have an expedition very soon, and I'll be leading it. Now, let's get busy. We have some preparations to make."
There would be several steps before such an expedition could be launched. A lucky day would have to be selected. Prior to leaving on this lucky day, the members of the expedition would have to report any dreams. A disturbing or unlucky dream, an out-and-out nightmare, would disqualify the person from the expedition.
Early in the evening the night before the expedition was to start, Wei's father approached him and asked, "Well, Son, have you had any bad dreams lately?"
"No, Father." He looked his father straight into the older man's eyes.
That was, however, a lie. For the past several nights, Wei had been plagued by endless nightmares. For Wei to have had nightmares but still go on a headhunting trip with his group would be a gross violation of a taboo. Wei knew, however, if had told the truth he would have been kicked out of the group and then he'd never have a chance at marrying Lu. His reputation, such as it was, would also be stained forever.
"That's good, Son. Now, since you are the only one in the group that hasn't gotten a tattoo yet, you will be accorded the honor of taking the first head back to our people! You'll kill and decapitate the enemy! What do you think of that?"
"Thank you, Father," said Wei. The first head . . . The reality hit home for Wei. I will be killing another person and taking his head . . . he thought. It's really going to happen now, and there's no way out of it--not for me . . . not for the sake of Lu . . . They couldn't be content with my just being a member of the team, could they? . . . I have to do the killing . . . the decapitating . . .
"Soon enough, Son, you'll be getting a tattoo just as all the other fellows in the village have! How great is that! Now, get some sleep. It's getting dark, and we'll need to get started before dawn."
"Yes, Father . . ."
Once again, Wei entered the world of disturbing dreams. As he slept fitfully on his mat, he dreamt of a green field bordered by a bamboo forest. Next to some bamboo was a large collection of freshly severed heads in a tall pile. Not far from the heads were his father and the young men of the village, and Wei discovered he too was standing among them.
Soon came the sounds of voices, and before long three people--a father, a mother, and a small boy of about four or so--came into view. Immediately, the men of the hunting party aimed their arrows at the three and let their arrows fly, hitting all three, who fell to the ground, moaning.
The headhunters rushed over to them and preceded to cut their heads off.
"No, no, no, please don't do this!" cried Wei. "This is so cruel!"
Wei then suddenly woke up with a shudder. He relaxed again somewhat when he realized it had all been a dream.
By now the early morning daylight streamed through the window. His father had entered the hut and told Wei to get ready to go.
The headhunting party assembled. Relying on the lucky omen of a bird, Wei's father said, "All right, we're going in this direction!"
The group moved off, with everyone but Wei in great spirits, for most of the young men had had very encouraging dreams about successful headhunting. Wei, silent, moved on, hoping no one would notice his trembling legs.
Please, Evening, Wei thought, you can't arrive early enough . . .
After a long march, Wei's father announced, "We're here! This is the place . . ."
Wei's father recited a verbal formula to expel bad luck. The headhunters then performed a simple ritual to ensure success for today's expedition. Wei's father then assigned each headhunter, including Wei, to his hiding place. Wei's appointed location would face the path the human prey would take as he, she, and/or they headed towards the bamboo grove.
"Wei! Wake up and focus!" said Wei's father, noticing his son's slowness in following orders.
Wei slunk into his assigned place in the grove. He turned his head and saw a brilliant field of tall green grasses.
Haven't . . . I . . . been . . . here . . . before . . . ? he asked himself. Then it hit him: he had seen this very greenery in his dream the night before.
"All right, Wei," said his father. "Listen. Keep your eyes and ears open. Once the enemy shows up, we'll shoot him. Then, once he has been totally subdued and is on the ground, you must quickly rush out and decapitate him. Now, don't worry! We'll all be here for you and have you covered . . . "
Wei nodded and continued to lie in wait behind the bamboo, his legs continuing to shake wildly.
It wasn't very long before someone, actually three people, came into view--a man, a woman, and a small child, the very people he had seen in his dream.
Towards the grove the three walked, holding hands, talking, and laughing . . .
The three came closer and closer . . . still laughing, talking . . .
Wei was ready to pass out right on the spot.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Arrows flew through the air.
The three members of the small family fell upon the ground, screaming and writhing in pain.
The headhunters lunged forward, each one wanting to be the one to cut the heads off, but they held back.
"Wei, what are you doing?" barked the father. "Get over there and do what you are supposed to do!"
Wei just stood there, frozen with fear and other emotions.
When Wei refused to move, his father drew his knife, shook his head in disgust and anger, marched over to the three people on the ground, knelt, and cut off each one's head. He then picked up the three heads, with blood dripping all over him, and deposited them at his son's feet.
"All right, Wei," said his father with anger resonating in his voice, "we'll be heading back. You shall be at the head of the procession, and you will be carrying those heads to demonstrate that now, finally, you are a worthy member of our community. Don't be such a damn coward and let everyone down!"
But Wei just stood there, paralyzed.
"So you can't even pick those heads up?" asked his father. "In that case, you are no son of mine. You are no longer an Atayal like the rest of us! You're just an outright coward, and no doctor can cure you of it!"
Wei thought about his father's words, and his thoughts immediately darted to Lu. Gnashing his teeth, he finally mustered up the courage to pick up the three heads. His father softened up a bit at his son's change of heart and smiled to give him some encouragement. The other headhunters gave Wei a loud cheer.
The group marched to a nearby stream, where one of the headhunters showed Wei how to wash the heads. Next, he helped Wei shave part of each head and drill a hole into it after which a thin but sturdy vine was inserted into the heads so that they could more easily be carried together.
Wei was still anguished and afraid that he would just freeze up and be unable to make it back to the village. He somehow pushed himself to move, wishing every second this ordeal would quickly end, that he could just be back in the village with his beloved Lu.
The headhunting group, with Wei in the front carrying the heads, finally arrived back in the village in the afternoon, and they were met by ecstatically cheering villagers lining the path to the village. The villagers were particularly enthused seeing Wei carrying those three heads.
"Wei severed three heads!" the headhunters chanted as they marched along the path.
Wei saw Lu smiling broadly.
Yes . . . Wei said to himself, I guess it was all worth it . . .
Carrying a "warrior's suit" created by her own mother's efforts on the loom, Lu approached Wei and proudly handed the suit to Wei to put on.
The celebrations throughout the village continued.
Wei's father constructed a special open cabinet, a "trophy cabinet," in front of the house to display the three heads, signifying that this was a house where successful headhunters lived. Villagers crowded in front of Wei's home to watch his father anoint the heads with rice wine.
Early that morning at around three, the celebrations were still going on. Wei and Lu were doing their own celebrating, drinking rice wine. Wei thought that he would now ask for Lu's hand in marriage. He was beginning to distance himself from the day's gruesome activities, to excuse himself from what had already happened. After all, he told himself, it wasn't as if he himself had shot the three with arrows and cut off their heads . . .
"Wei!" shouted his father. "Come on over to the trophy cabinet here and stand in front of it!"
His father had inserted some chunks of grilled chicken into the mouths of the three heads. He next inserted a stalk of grass into the woman's mouth. He followed this by sticking some pork into the child's mouth.
"Now, Wei," said the father, "eat whatever is in their mouths!"
This was a custom among these headhunters, and it was designed to instill courage among those who would have to maintain headhunting as regular practice. On one level, Wei, of course, knew this, but on another level, he had caused himself to forget that he too would have to engage in this ritual.
"Umm . . . what's that?" asked Wei.
His father's eyes narrowed as Lu looked on, expecting Wei to follow the custom.
"You heard me, Wei . . ."
If cutting off heads wasn't disgusting enough, Wei now had to eat the food from all those dead lips. What could he do? He thought of Lu and how all he wanted was just to make a life with her . . .
He approached the three heads, knelt, and placed his mouth on the that of the dead man. He then began to use his teeth to pull out the food that had been stuffed in there and started to eat it.
He suddenly stopped when he felt a sharp pain on his lips. Had the dead man's mouth bitten his lips? He looked at the head; the dead man's face was contorted in obvious rage. The chanting villagers standing nearby seemed not to notice the expression on the dead man's face.
After he had managed to finish eating what was in the mouth of the male head, his father shouted, "Wei, you're doing a great job! Don't stop now! You have two more!"
Wei gathered up his courage and turned to the next head, the one that belonged to the woman. Everybody there reacted with deafening cheers of approval.
Ready to eat the stalk of grass and meat inside her mouth, Wei looked at the face.
The villagers continued with their shouting, chanting, and dancing . . .
Tears from the eyes of the woman's head began to trickle down her face . . .
Wei backed away, stood up, pointed to the woman's head, and shouted, "Everybody! Everybody stop for a moment! Take a look! Look!"
The noise and celebrating continued unabated.
"Would you all just please look?" Wei was desperate now. "Look! Look at her eyes! She's crying!"
The noise decreased somewhat while some continued to chant, scream, and dance. There was no doubt, though, that they had heard Wei's words.
The villagers could see wet tracks of tears on the face of the dead woman's head. Were they her tears or something else? many wondered. No one could be sure, but the celebrations persisted, though not quite as festively as before.
Wei was now able to step away from the heads and the need to eat what was in their dead mouths. No one said anymore about it; instead, the celebrations continued for a few more days and nights.
Since the beginning of the celebrations, Wei had been visited nightly by the three headhunting victims. They would approach him and stand near him with looks of disgust on their faces.
Finally, when he could no longer stand these visitations, Wei knelt before the trophy cabinet and offered his apologies to the three heads, promising never again to take part in a headhunting expedition.
The ghostly visits then totally ceased.
Wei went on to wed Lu and lived the rest of his life as a humble farmer, not as a swaggering headhunting warrior.
from
Taiwan shandicun guiying chuangchuang 台灣山地村鬼影幢幢 [The flickering of apparition shadows in Taiwanese Indigenous villages]. Li Meng. Taipei: Xidai, 1995: pp. 10-34
This legend comes from an anthology of ghost stories from Indigenous Taiwanese communities. The main character in the story, "Wei," was purported to be still alive when this book was first published, in 1995. The story itself supposedly took place in the early 1930s, during the Japanese occupation era. I created single names for each character so as not to identify the families of those involved in this tale.
The Atayal, along with other Indigenous peoples, engaged in the practice of headhunting or, to use a euphemism translated from Chinese, "to weed, to eradicate weeds" [出草]. Separate research done by anthropologists Julian Baldick and Lars Krutak suggests that the heads of interlopers on tribal lands were taken to propitiate the gods to ensure a good harvest, to honor ancestors with these heads, and to serve as an initiation ritual (rite of ordeal) to establish the headhunter as a true warrior, a worthy member of the community, and thus a worthwhile, eligible marriage choice. Those who came back from headhunting expeditions/campaigns with heads were each entitled to a tattoo, depending on the tribe, on the chin and/or forehead. Such a tattoo was an indispensable ticket in seeking a wife. More heads would allow the headhunter to have a special tattoo on his back. Whose head would be taken? The intended quarry could be a different tribe member encroaching on tribal land, a Han Taiwanese, or a Japanese. As indicated by this story, a woman could lose her head as well as any male outsider. (See Julian Baldick's Ancient Religions of the Austronesian World [London: I. B. Tauris, 2013] and Lars Krutak's "Losing Your Head Among the Tattooed Headhunters of Taiwan" from www.larskrutak.com/losing-your-head-among-the-tattooed-headhunters-of-taiwan.
Motifs: cE231.5, "Ghost returns to murderer, causing him to confess"; F1001, "Extraordinary heads act as living objects"; H106.2, "Severed head as proof of killing"; H335.4.1, "Suitor task: to bring enemy's head"; M302.7, "Prophecy through dreams"; P555.2.1., "Heads of slain enemies displayed"; S139.2.1.1, "Head of murdered man taken along as trophy."
Interestingly, in the world of folktales, myths, and legends, with flying and talking heads, I was unable to locate an existing motif for something like "severed head cries tears." Perhaps further research will reveal such a motif.
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