David, only because I think so highly of you...

First, googling "head hunter" yields a great many entries on employment
facilitation and relatively few on any kind of cultural practice.  Not that
sheer numbers make anything right, but it does say something about common
understanding of the phrase.

To my vaguely anthropological mind (4 years of undergraduate studies and
early stages of a doctoral degree with 25 years of museum administration
superimposed) the popular idea of head-hunting probably encompasses both
altering the head of an already-dead person (generally assumed to be an
enemy) and cannibalism.   The best known of the "head altering" groups are
the Jivaro of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon who practiced
head-shrinking.   A fairly detailed analysis of this (including history and
a photo gallery) can be found at www.head-hunter.com.   Other groups who
used parts of human heads as trophies include Native Hawaiians and Tibetans.

Cannibalism is a very different issue.   There is fairly good evidence for
sporadic cannibalism in a great many cultures (including ours).  It is less
easy to identify any group that practiced this on a regular basis.   The
Wikipedia entry on cannibalism is fairly complete
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism) so I won't add anything here
except to point those who might be interested in reading more to "The
Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy" by William Arens.

Finally, a word on scalping (which also has both a relatively pejorative
cultural meaning and a more benign contemporary one).   It is now generally
agreed that scalping was a practice introduced by the Europeans, originally
against the Indians.   Again, more information can be found at
http://ct.essortment.com/historyscalpin_rdrp.htm.

janice
(who is not only avoiding work, but apparently channeling for Gene
Dillenburg)

Janice Klein
Director, Mitchell Museum of the American Indian
[log in to unmask]
www.mitchellmuseum.org



-----Original Message-----
From: Museum discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of David E. Haberstich
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 10:37 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Headhunters


With all due respect to Geri Thomas, I'd like to argue a bit with the
characterization of "headhunter" as a pejorative term.  I can well
understand a
"search and recruitment" specialist preferring not to be called a headhunter
or any
other slangy term, just as many psychiatrists prefer not being called
headshrinkers or "shrinks" (although I have known several who didn't mind
the slang
at all).  But I question the notion that calling "some tribal peoples in the
past" headhunters is pejorative, which I take to imply incorrect or unfair.
I
suspect that "headhunting" is probably surrounded by myth and
misunderstanding,
and I invite any anthropologist or other expert to clarify or correct me,
but
is it not a bald (ha) fact that "some tribal peoples in the past" hunted for
heads to shrink, under certain circumstances?  Even if the practice of
headhunting were a complete myth, for that matter, isn't the notion of
search and
recruitment specialists hunting for good heads a rather apt metaphor?

What's next?  Disc jockeys objecting to the term because they disapprove of
horseracing as a cruel sport that exploits helpless creatures?

David Haberstich

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