The Headhunter’s Bride

The Headhunter’s Bride is a book of narrative nonfiction, published in 1952, by Dr. B. H. Pearson.

I picked up this book because of the provocative title, but also because it’s directly related to Lettie Cowman.

I’ve even got a photo of Lettie with a headhunter.

According to Pearson, he first heard the story from Lettie. He found it so astonishing, he interviewed the bride for the whole story.

It’s a wild one.

Headhunter facts

No, we’re not talking about recruiters.

We’re talking about a man who grew up in a Formosan/Taiwanese village in the first half of the 20th century. Pearson called him “Zumba.” (Which has nothing to do with exercise dance).

The villagers really did kill people, often with poison darts, and then cut off their heads.

The hunters wore netting around their necks and carried the heads in those nets back to the village following a raid. (As late as the 1930s)

It was a triumphant time of religious ritual when they returned. The women and children whooped and screamed, gathering around the men to inspect their “trophies of war.”

The villagers set the severed heads on logs and brought them bowls filled with rice liquor to “make the spirits happy,” so they would help the villagers rather than their enemies.

Honestly, you have to read it to believe/understand it.

The story was grisly.

Fortunately, the book has no photos.

Who was the headhunter?

Zumba was the son of Chief Zu, who had ruled the native Taiyals/Amis people for many years.

Chief Zu, his father, had ruled the Taiyals for years when his oldest son left the Formosan mountains to attend school in Taipei. He learned to speak Japanese and trained to become a Japanese police officer.

One day, he heard OMS founder Juji Nakada share the Gospel, and Zumba became a Christian. He returned to his village to teach and tell them the Good News.

Zumba also had to tell his father he would not participate in headhunting any more.

As a result of this decision, no women in the village would marry him.

He asked the Taipei pastor for help in finding a bride.

Who would become a Headhunter’s Bride?

A very unusual woman indeed.

O-Chan, as Pearson calls her, was born in Japan about 1905, of near-royalty, a member of Shogun Keihi’s family. (He was the supreme ruler before the Meiji dynasty).

She grew up entering the Japanese palace, at home in conversing with the Emperor and Empress. The family arranged for O-Chan to marry a wealthy and prestigious man.

But a Christian serving girl gave O-Chan a New Testament. She became convinced it was true and left home for the Oriental Missionary Society’s Bible Training Institute in Tokyo.

Her family disowned her.

She didn’t mind.

“I saw there was some purpose in living. Now I had Life and something to live for.”

The Headhunter’s Bride, p 220

When a Taiwanese pastor visited the Bible Training Institute one day in 1926, he told of the Christian headhunter who wanted a wife but was shunned because he’d given up headhunting.

Would any woman in the school be willing to accept this man and live in the village to share the Gospel?

She would leave behind a city life of order, electricity, piped-in water, telephones, and clean orderly streets. Her new home would be in a village of bamboo huts over dugouts two feet deep and communal pots for dining.

Only one woman came forward: O-Chan.

This was my chance. At times before I became a Christian, I thought of suicide, because life was so empty. Here was something worth dying for–these headhunters for whom no one cared.”

The Headhunter’s Bride, p. 221

But her instructors were aghast. Given her imperial connections, they had hoped she would work among her friends and family. Surely someone else would volunteer for this life-long task?

They waited, but no one did.

At last I said, ‘If God is calling me I must go.’ I dropped to my knees and promised God that if He would go with me, I would never turn back.”

Ibid.

And so she went.

Formosa/Taiwan in 1926

The eastern half of the island of Formosa is a rugged mountainous country, almost impregnable. The southern tip is 500 miles due west across the South China Sea from Hong Kong.

In the early 20th century, the Taiyal/Ami people had been driven off the rice-growing plains into the high eastern mountains by the Japanese. They managed, living off the land, trading with people in coastal towns for their needed salt and other staples.

People were afraid of them, for good reason, and they lived isolated in the hills. The men hunted, the women planted, gathered, made cloth, cooked, and did all the usual work of aboriginal women everywhere.

Following directions sent from Zumba, O-Chan, her pastor and a Chrisitan couple set off to find Zumba’s village high above the jungles.

She married Zumba that night.

Two nights later, after her friends left for Japan, O-Chan witnessed the return of a headhunting party, complete with three severed heads.

Terrified by the screams and dancing, she turned to her new husband who explained the ways of the people.

She had never dreamed that all this commotion had any reference to placating and honoring the spirits of those whose heads she saw there before her . . . she saw that all of this had a religious significance . . . It was all so crude, so savage, so uncouth, so dark, so without the knowledge of God.”

The Headhunter’s Bride, p. 79

The Results of the Headhunter’s Bride’s life?

Chief Zu welcomed O-Chan into the clan in their primitive village. She soon grew to love Zumba and eventually gave birth to three sons.

Her willingness to serve and adapt to the village life endeared her to the tribe, despite her and Zumba’s unwillingness to participate in headhunting rituals.

Gradually, many asked to know about her God.

That included the man known as “Blackbeard,” who founded the OMS work among the tribal people in Formosa.

She used her limited skills to help with midwifery and hygiene, ministered to the sick, and prayed for all. Her youngest son eventually traveled to Japan where he became a doctor.

They called him Juji.

The Japanese Army in the mid-1940s martyred Zumba for refusing to deny Christ. O-Chan died in the 1970s.

She’d told her story to Lettie Cowman when they met in 1929. By 1975, 14 tribal churches had been established in eastern Taiwan.

They were no longer headhunters.

O-Chan may have forsaken the riches of the Japanese aristocracy, but she’s rejoicing in heaven today with the saints–including many Taiyal tribe members.

Tweetables

The life of a Headhunter’s Bride, for Christ. Click to Tweet

What would cause a Japanese noblewoman to marry a headhunter? Click to Tweet