In conclusion note should be made of oft repeated assertions to the effect that a part of the people of Davao District are white, and that they are also cannibals and headhunters.  The first can be dismissed with the statement that so far as the writer has been able to observe or to learn from trustworthy sources, there is no justification for such a story.  It can be just as positively stated that neither the Mandaya nor any other tribe here described practice cannabalism[sic].  Warriors do eat a part of the livers and hearts of men who have shown great valor, the eaters thus securing some of the good qualities of the victims.  The Kulaman warriors always taste of the liver of the slain “in order to become like Mandalangan,” but they expressed the greatest disgust when it was suggested that the balance of the body might make good food.

While it is true that the Kulaman take the heads, and some times the arms,[1] of slain foes, and that the same custom is some times followed by individual warriors of the other tribes, head-hunting for the sake of the trophy is not practiced here, as is the case in Northern Luzon.  The skull or other portions of the body are kept only long enough to prove the murder, or until they can be mutilated by the women and children, “who thus become brave.”

[1] This is also the custom of the Bukidnon.