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| Victim Ngayau |
The practice of head hunting is one form of social behavior complex and has provoked the emergence of various explanations from various writers, both from "explorers" and academics.
For the Dayak Ngaju tribe in Central Kalimantan, the tradition of the ceremony for the ceremony of Tiwah, the largest sacred ceremony of the Dayak Ngaju tribe to bring the soul or the human spirit who has passed away to the seventh heaven (Riwut, 2003: 203). According to Width (1972: 171), among the Kenyah, the head hunt is important in relation to Mamat, the head-cutting feast, which ends the period of mourning and accompanies the initiation ceremony to enter the status system of Suhan for warriors. Successful headhunters have the right to wear the beetle's panther in their ears, headdresses from hornbills, and a special-designed tattoo. Attack of head hunters is done by small groups of ten to twenty males - a man who moves quietly and suddenly. They are very concerned about the signs, especially the birds. After being used in Mamad ceremonies, the heads were hung on the verandah of the long house, facing the living rooms that housed the chairman of the long house. In the past the Dayak tribe of Kenyah was reported as the most famous head hunter in Kalimantan. Like the Dayak Kenyah tribe, Iban Dayak tribe also performs a head hunting ceremony called Gawai. The ceremony is not only religious but also involves a large party with drinks and fun (Width, 1972: 184).
Miller, an explorer, for example, writes in his Black Borneo (1946: 121), states that the practice of hunting heads can be explained in the framework of supernatural powers that the Dayaks believed to be in the human head. For the Dayaks, the drained human skull is the most powerful magic in the world. A newly decapitated head is strong enough to save the whole village from the plague. A head that has been spiked with herbs when manipulated properly is strong enough to produce rain, increase rice yields, and drive out evil spirits. If it was not strong enough, it was because the power had begun to fade and needed a new skull. Meanwhile, Mc Kinley described the head-hunting ritual as a transitional process, in which people who used to be enemies became friends by blending them into the everyday world.
There may be a question, in the Ngayau tradition that why should the head and not the other body parts taken. Mc Kinley argues (1976: 124) that the head is chosen as a fitting symbol for these rituals because the head contains a facial element, similarly to the social value of personal names, the most concrete symbol of social identity personhood). This inner self is in turn the most human attribute of the enemy and thus becomes an attribute to be claimed by the community of the person.
In his study of the Iban Dayak tribe, Freeman says that head hunting is symbolically related to fertility. The parallels between the human head and fertility are central to the discussion of head hunting practices. Freeman says (1979: 234), the culmination of the extraordinary allegory that became central to the head-hunting ceremony conducted by the Iban people who, when already singed by the mantras spell chantlers, performed by candidates for head hunters, was a a ritual known as Ngelampang which literally means to chop or chop into small pieces. In this section of the allegory is presented a graphical description of the ritual cleaving the head of an imitation or a nutmeg by a Sing Singongang Burong that is the Iban tribal war god. Lang performs this ritual (something that symbolizes the true decapitation of the enemy) with a single sword slash (sword) which he does very quickly, and from his cleaved head flows the seeds which, when imposed, arise into a figure t
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