When one of their warriors has killed an enemy he cuts off the head with his bamboo knife, removes the brain, soaks the head in a vegetable oil, takes out bones of the skull, and dries the remaining parts by putting hot pebbles inside of it.

At the same time care is taken to preserve all the features and the hair intact.

By repeating the process with the hot pebbles many times the head finally becomes shrunken to that of a small doll, though still retaining its human aspect, so that the effect produced is very weird and uncanny.

Lastly, the head is decorated with brilliant feathers, and the lips are fastened together with a string, by which the head is suspended from the rafters of the council-house." Ancient Customs .-- According to Herodotus the ancient Lydians and Medes, and according to Plato the islanders in the Atlantic, cemented friendship by drinking human blood.

Tacitus speaks of Asian princes swearing allegiance with their own blood, which they drank.