Rocks are often thrown in battle, and not infrequently a man’s leg is broken or he is knocked senseless by a rock, whereupon he loses his head to the enemy, unless immediately assisted by his friends.

There is little formality about the head taking.  Most heads are cut off with the battle-ax before the wounded man is dead.  Not infrequently two or more men have thrown their spears into a man who is disabled.  If among the number there is one who has never taken a head, he will generally be allowed to cut this one from the body, and thus be entitled to a head taker’s distinct tattoo.  However, the head belongs to the man who threw the first disabling spear, and it finds its resting place in his ato.  If there is time, men of other ato may cut off the man’s hands and feet to be displayed in their ato.  Sometimes succeeding sections of the arms and legs are cut and taken away, so only the trunk is left on the field.

Frequently a battle ends when a single head is taken by either side —­ the victors calling out, “Now you go home, and we will go home; and if you want to fight some other day, all right!” In this way battles are ended in an hour or so, and often in half an hour.  However, they have battles lasting half a day, and ten or a dozen heads are taken.  Seven pueblos of the lower Quiangan region went against the scattered groups of dwellings in the Banawi area of the upper Quiangan region in May, 1902.  The invaders had seven guns, but the people of Banawi had more than sixty —­ a fact the invaders did not know until too late.  However, they did not retire until they had lost a hundred and fifty heads.  They annihilated one of the groups of the enemy, getting about fifty heads, and burned down the dwellings.  This is by far the fiercest Igorot battle of which there is any memory, and its ferocity is largely due to firearms.

When a head has been taken the victor usually starts at once for his pueblo, without waiting for the further issue of the battle.  He brings the head to his ato and it is put in a small funnel-shaped receptacle, called “sak-o’-long,” which is tied on a post in the stone court of the fawi.  The entire ato joins in a ceremony for the day and night; it is called “se’-dak.”  A dog or hog is killed, the greater part of which is eaten by the old men of the ato, while the younger men dance to the rhythmic beats of the gangsa.  On the next day, “chao’-is,” a month’s ceremony, begins.  About 7 o’clock in the morning the old men take the head to the river.  There they build a fire and place the head beside it, while the other men of the ato dance about it for an hour.  All then sit down on their haunches facing the river, and, as each throws a small pebble into the water he says, “Man-i’-su, hu! hu! hu!  Tukukan!” —­ or the name of the pueblo from which the head was taken.  This is to divert the battle-ax of their enemy from their own necks.  The head is washed in the river by sousing it up and down by the hair; and the party returns to the fawi where the lower jaw is cut from the head, boiled to remove the flesh, and becomes a handle for the victor’s gangsa.  In the evening the head is buried under the stones of the fawi.