Quid miseros hortaris gaudeant? quid deceptos homines laetari compellis? quam illis spem, quam salutem funesta persuasione promittis? Dei tui mors nota est, vita non paret.... Idolum sepelis, idolum plangis, idolum de sepultura proferis, et miser cum haec feceris, gaudes. Tu deum tuum liberas, tu jacentia lapidis membra componis, tu insensibile corrigis saxum.” In this passage Firmicus does not expressly mention Attis, but that the reference is to his rites is made probable by a comparison with chapter 3 of the same writer's work. Compare also Damascius, in Photius's Bibliotheca, p. 345 a, 5 sqq., ed. I. Bekker (Berlin, 1824), τότε τῇ Ἱεραπόλει ἐγκαθευδήσας ἐδόκουν ὄναρ ὁ Ἄττης γένεσθαι, καί μοι ἐπιτελεῖσθαι παρὰ τῆς μητρὸς τῶν θεῶν τὴν τῶν ἱλαρίων καλουμένων ἑορτήν; ὅπερ ἐδήλου τὴν ἐξ ᾅδου γεγονυῖαν ἡμῶν σωτηρίαν. See further Fr. Cumont, Les Religions Orientales dans le Paganisme Romain2 (Paris, 1909), pp. 89 sq.
Spenser St. John, op. cit. i. 204. See further G. A. Wilken, “Iets over de schedelvereering,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, xxxviii. (1889) pp. 89-129; id., Verspreide Geschriften (The Hague, 1912), iv. 37-81. A different view of the purpose of head-hunting is maintained by Mr. A. C. Kruyt, in his essay, “Het koppensnellen der Toradja's van Midden-Celebes, en zijne Beteekenis,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde, Vierde Reeks, iii. 2 (Amsterdam, 1899), pp. 147 sqq.
The natives of Nias, an island to the west of Sumatra, think it necessary to obtain the heads of their enemies for the purpose of celebrating the final obsequies of a dead chief. Their notion seems to be that the ghost of the deceased ruler demands this sacrifice in his honour, and will punish the omission of it by sending sickness or other misfortunes on the survivors. Thus among these people the custom of head-hunting is based on their belief in human immortality and on their conception of the exacting demands which the dead make upon the living. When the skulls have been presented to a dead chief, the priest prays to him for his blessing on the sowing and harvesting of the rice, on the fruitfulness of women, and so forth. See C. Fries, “Das ‘Koppensnellen’ auf Nias,” Allgemeine Missions-Zeitschrift, February, 1908, pp. 73-88. From this account it would seem that it is not the spirits of the slain men, but the ghost of the dead chief from whom the blessings of fertility and so forth are supposed to emanate. Compare Th. C. Rappard, “Het eiland Nias en zijne bewoners,” Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, lxii. (1909) pp. 609-611.