In Savage Island the slaying of a member of another tribe--that is, a potential enemy--"was a virtue rather than a crime."[35] To a young Samoan it was the realisation of his highest ambition to be publicly thanked by the chiefs for killing a foe in mortal combat.[36] "According to Fijian beliefs, men who have not slain any enemy are, in the other world, compelled to beat dirt with their clubs--the most degrading punishment the native mind can conceive--because they used their club to so little purpose;[37] and in Futuna it was deemed no less necessary to have poured out blood on the field of battle in order to hold a part in the happy future life.[38] In the Western islands of Torres Straits "it was a meritorious deed to kill foreigners either in fair fight {333} or by treachery, and honour and glory were attached to the bringing home of the skulls of the inhabitants of other islands slain in battle."[39] In the Solomon Islands,[40] New Guinea,[41] and various parts of the Malay Archipelago, he who has collected the greatest number of human heads is honoured by his tribe as the bravest man; and some peoples do not allow a man to marry until he has cut off at least one human head.[42] Among many of the North American Indians, again, he who can boast of the greatest number of scalps is the person most highly esteemed.[43] Among the Seri Indians the highest virtue "is the shedding of alien blood; and their normal impulse on meeting an alien is to kill, unless deterred by fear."[44] Among the Chukchi "it is held criminal to thieve or murder in the family or race to which a person belongs; but these crimes committed elsewhere are not only permitted, but held honourable and glorious."[45] So, too, the Gallas consider it honourable to kill an alien, though criminal to kill a countryman.[46] [Footnote 35: Thomson, _Savage Island_, p. 104. See also _ibid._ p. 94.] [Footnote 36: Pritchard, _Polynesian Reminiscences_, p. 57.] [Footnote 37: Seemann, _Viti_, p. 401. _Cf._ Williams and Calvert, _op. cit._ p. 97 _sq._; Erskine, _Islands of the Western Pacific_, p. 248.] [Footnote 38: Smith, in _Jour. Polynesian Society_, i. 39.] [Footnote 39: Haddon, in _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits_, v. 277.] [Footnote 40: Romilly, _Western Pacific_, p. 73. Penny, _Ten Years in Melanesia_, p. 46. Codrington, _op. cit._ p. 345.] [Footnote 41: Romilly, _Western Pacific_, p. 76.] [Footnote 42: Bock, _Head-Hunters of Borneo_, pp. 216, 221, &c. (Dyaks). Bickmore, _Travels in the East Indian Archipelago_, p. 205 (Alfura of Ceram). Dalton, _op. cit._ p. 40 (Nagas of Upper Assam).] [Footnote 43: The well-known practice of scalping, though very common, was not universal among the North American Indians (see Gibbs, 'Tribes of Western Washington and Northwestern Oregon,' in _Contributions to N. American Ethnology_, i. 192; Powers, _Tribes of California_, p. 321).]