ash they were carried up-stream and
reached their home in a miraculously short time. During the fifteen days
that they had been absent the crop of rice had not only sprouted, but
had grown, had ripened, and was almost ready to be harvested; the
members of their family who had been sick when they left, were now all
well, the lame could walk and the blind see. The wise men waggled their
heads, and one and all declared (and who can blame them?) that ever
after they would stick to the custom that Kop had taught them.

It is not unfair to infer from this tradition that they have a crude,
germinal sense of the barbarity of their actions, in so far as they
think it necessary to invent an excuse to palliate that savage love of
trophy-hunting which seems inborn in mankind. The rite of head-hunting
is by no means confined to Borneo; the Formosans, and also many of our
new fellow-citizens, among the tribes of the Philippines, are
enthusiastic head-hunters, and our own cherished Indians within our own
borders have not yet given up their love for a scalp; it would be
perilous to assert that it is not a United States custom.

The idea that the taking of a head is necessary in order to obtain
entrance to the pleasant regions of the land of departed spirits, is a
doctrine taught by the chiefs in order to make men brave in battle, and
do all in their power to avoid the punishment which awaits the coward.
The Kayan Hades is believed to be under ground, and like the Hades of
the ancient Greeks there is a guide to the entrance who corresponds to a
certain extent to Charon. But their river Styx is not a stream, but a
deep and wide ditch, through which flow ooze and slime swarming with
worms and maggots; the souls of the departed must cross over this ditch
not by a ferry, but by means of a fallen tree-trunk, guarded by the
great demon _Maligang_, who challenges all comers, and if they have no
record of bravery, he shakes the tree-trunk until they fall into the
ditch below and are eternally tortured by the devouring worm that dieth
not. Over the land of spirits presides the great demon _Laki Tenangan_,
who assigns the souls to their proper place, and sees that they get
their deserts, whether good or bad.

In this shadowy world, APO LEGGAN is one of the principal regions, and
is the abode of the spirits of those who die from sickness or from old
age. The souls in _Apo Leggan_ have much the same lot as they had in
this world; the poor remain