Renato Rosaldo

Holy crap, they’re real! I can’t believe that somehow people out there really hunt people’s heads! Although I must admit the purpose behind it now illuminates at least the reason why this task is done. First I myself need to rid myself of the world that is forced upon me. I am an American citizen, and I have strong moral values. (none of which include headhunting…yet…just kidding)
Rosaldo first could not imagine how grief could equate to anger. It is clear that his picture of grief, like most of the “civilized world” equates to sadness. Now for some reason I was not surprised at this. My own bias is that of my upbringing. The things I see in this world are often on a powerful and emotional level, never do I perceive things at face value…unless the value is of course only found on the face…(I dare you to tell me what you think that means!) I found that by leaving yourself susceptible to the emotion that an experience brings about it is far easier to catch a glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel.
I also advocate experience. Although one would have to be Ilongot to fully comprehend the experience, because they are raised with the idea that taking a persons head gives them a place to “Carry his anger.” Rosaldo himself says “Only after being repositioned through a devastating loss of my own could I better grasp that Ilongot older men mean precisely what they say when they describe the anger in bereavement as the source of their desire to cut off human heads.” I agree absolutely with this.
As I think back to what grief means, I am reminded of the last three years. 2005, 2006, and 2007. In each of these years someone I know and or care about has committed suicide. This is particularly bad in that they have all done it in the same way and while in the presence of someone they supposedly care about. All three of them were men, and all three of them were either on the phone with ,or in the room with their girlfriends. I do not mean to draw any connections or inferences to the meaning of or between these happenings apart from the fact that I have personally known all of them. It hurts to see another year go by knowing that one more of your friends or a relative has taken their life and there was nothing you could do. Helplessness turns to despair, and despair turns to anger. Anger causes many things but is definitely in the process of grieving.
Here in America we place our anger in a casket and bury it with our loved ones. Grief is three days off from work where how you feel means nothing on the annual report.
I understand completely why the Ilongot cut heads off…it gives them something to do, rather than to sit back biting the bullet wishing it was you that had died instead.