中央研 究院历史语言研究所集刊-古文古籍-The Origin of Headhunting──An Atayal Text with Vocabulary.pdf

THE ORIGIN OF HEADHUNTING AN ATAYAL TEXT WITH VOCABULARY S4REN EGEROD UNIV E RSIT Y OF COPENHAGEh 1. I N TRODUCTION In 1961 and 1962 I had occas ion to spend .half a year U\ Taiwan under the auspices of the Carlsberg Foundation of Copen hagen- and the A cademia Sinicas, N an Kang . I worked with the Atayal language which I have previously treated in f~r pa pers! to which t he read er is r eferred for detailed information on phono log y and grammar . The text published here consists of th e transc ript ion of part of a taped conversa tion which took place in th e village of Wul ai, South of T aipei, 14 J a nuary 1962 b etween a 38 yea r old man (call ed A in the text ) from th e G~gan area and a 5 1 yea r old ma n (call ed B in the text ) from the T ranan area . The conversation deal s with the question of headh unting, especia lly th e origin of th is custom as to which the Ataya ls have tw o di fferent explanations. One is that at the time when the Atayals were leaving their place of origin they had a dispute w ith a people called the Khmaiun (or Skhmaiun) whi ch resulted in the Khmaiun p ermitti ng the Atayals to hu nt their heads, Another story tells tha t the Atayals at a later point in thei r his tory we nt ou t looking for p eople to hunt an d found the C hin ese who simila rly made