I recently experienced a great, if brief, joy. I had just ended a war between two Baule tribes, the Faafou ́e and the Saafou ́e, and I had forced the former to give back to the latter the heads they had cut off. I was brought a load of skulls. By night—so as not to be accused of witchcraft—I took out my callipers and the skulls hoping to make a few useful measurements. I was much disillusioned. None of them had either upper or lower jaws; the Faafou ́e had kept those as trophies. Then, all but one had been sawed off at the beginning of the forehead so as to make drinking vessels from the skull cap; both parts, hacked apart with a knife did not match up, I did not even know which cap to place with which skull. I could not use any of them. The Saafou ́e were not happy, stating that these were only half skulls; in my opinion, they are right. De- lafosse, 1896.
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 04:22:29 +0000
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