💼 Recruiting leaders 🗿 Taking enemy heads

headhunting

1 9.9

Taking and keeping enemies' heads as trophies, often in war or ritual

noun
/ˈhɛdˌhʌntɪŋ/

Offensive

: caza de cabezas (ritual, arcaico)

In some ancient cultures, headhunting was seen as a way to honor fallen warriors by preserving their heads as trophies.
the practice of headhunting

Examples

The sum of these external household alliances provided stronger or weaker deterrents to headhunting and warfare with other longhouses in the region.

Academic text (1993)
And last, there were areas of ritual practice—headhunting journeys, women's search for sacred songs—into which I had no intention of intruding.

Academic text (1993)
"Headhunting stopped in the 1950s," he said.

Academic text (1995)
He talks of the headhunting years.

Academic text (2007)
" Ngayau" is almost a synonym to "headhunting."

Academic text (2007)
Taboos required that I not mention what it was that I wanted to hear and see: "They say the time approaches to go to the sea, a euphemism for headhunting."

Academic text (1993)
In their practices, headhunting often was necessary to properly conduct funeral ceremonies; however, the Dutch made this illegal in the 19th century (Lebar, p. 136).

Academic text (2007)
(n13) I recall visiting the mappurondo hamlets in Saludengen and asking the village elders if I might take part in their headhunting ceremonies.

Academic text (1993)
For example, the annual post-harvest headhunting rite known as pangngae, which is today run in "symbolic" fashion only (that is, no real heads are taken), may not be discussed openly until it "happens" (George 1990, 1991, n.d.).

Academic text (1993)
For centuries, the Kelabit people have lived deep in Borneo's upland jungles, practicing animism and headhunting until missionaries converted them to Christianity after World War II.

Academic text (2007)

Synonyms

beheading

vsheadhunting

Offensive

25 8.6

Killing someone by cutting off their head

focuses on collecting and preserving skulls as trophies after conflict or ritual

Surface Forms

headhunting singular

headhuntings plural

Morphology

headhunting = headhunt (semi-transparent) = head + hunt + ing

Morphologically clear as 'head' + 'hunt' + -ing, but this literal sense (taking heads as trophies) is rare/archaic and may not be obvious to learners familiar only with the recruitment sense.

Etymology

Headhunting is the literal idea of head plus hunt: people once 'hunted' and kept the heads of enemies as 'trophies' to show power. That's why it means taking and preserving the heads of enemies in warfare or ritual.