Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/798

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772, THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

tigers, elephants, cows, hogs, dogs, or monkeys, or aught else, for it signifies little what comes to their net."'

The head-hunting mania of Borneo is also a pathological expression of the desire to get approval of destructive activity from both the living and the dead: "The aged of the people were no longer safe among their kindred, and corpses were secretly disinterred to increase the grizzly store. Superstition soon added its ready impulse to the general movement. The aged warrior could not rest in his grave till his relatives had taken a head in his name ; the maiden disdained the weak- hearted suitor whose hand was not yet stained with some cow- ardly murder."^

Class distinctions and the attendant ceremonial observances go immediately back to an appreciation of successful motor activities. It needs only to observe the conduct of weaker ani- mals in the presence of the stronger to appreciate the differences in behavior induced by the presence of superior motor ability. The recognition of this difference, as it is finally expressed in habitual forms of behavior, becomes the sign of the difference, while the difference goes back, in reality, to a difference in capa- city. This example from Raffles illustrates the intensity of moral meaning which the appreciation of achievement may take on in the end : "At the court of Sura-kMa I recollect that once, when holding a private conference with the Siisunan at the resi- dency, it became necessary for the Rddan adipdii to be dis- patched to the palace for the royal seal : the poor old man was, as usual, squatting, and as the Susunan happened to be seated with his face toward the door, it was fully ten minutes before his minister, after repeated ineffectual attempts, could obtain the opportunity of rising sufficiently to reach the latch without being seen by his royal master. The mission on which he was dis- patched was urgent, and the Susunan himself inconvenienced by the delay ; but these inconveniences were insignificant compared with the indecorum of being seen out of the dddok posture. When it is necessary for an inferior to move, he must still retain

'Journal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. VIII, p. 470.

'F. BoTLE, Adventures among the Dyaks of Borneo, p. 170.

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