William Henry FURNESS - The Home-Life of Borneo Head-Hunters: Its Festivals and Folk-Lore. Philadelphia, J.B. Lippincott, 1902 xi; 197 pp. with frontispiece and additional 87 heliotype plates with descriptions on opposite tissueguards, some text illustrations and figures - extensive index - limited to 500 copies - Bound in fine modern black halfcalf over marbled boards with 5 raised bands and corners - red label and gilt title on spine - top edge gilt. First free endpaper with a dedication by the father of the author “Alexander Smith with the cordial regards of Horace Howard Furness November 1902”. Condition: Very good – a few plates have some faint marginal stains, slightly browned in places. Attention: The original binding often shows problems (weak stitching due to the excessive weight of plates bound in), but binding of this copy is stiff and holds very well ! William Henry Furness III (1866-1920), an American physician, was one of the first Westerners to encounter the Kayan people and Kenyhas of the Baram district, Serawak. He devotes chapters to their home life, ceremonies, early head-hunter training, war expeditions, peace-making, personal embellishment, taboo and tuba fishing, all with copious amounts of accompanying photographs that excellently illustrate the ways of life of the people he met. This work is the product of four expeditions Furness made between 1895 and 1901 accompanied by two like-minded physicians: Hiram M. Hiller, Jr. and Alfred C. Harrison, Jr. While their expeditions were primarily ethnographic, they also collected a considerable amount of biological and archaeological artefacts that became one of the founding collections of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The heliotype plates depict female and male species of Dayak, arms and armour (mandau and shields), bamboo carved utensils, other household implements, tattoo-patterns, architecture of longhouses, etc. In the internet only 4 copies available between € 850 and 1500.