21 Until the beginning of the 20 th century the Balkans was a promised land for hunters of one British anthropologist put it, was common in Turkey and could be performed without fear th century onwards, Western travellers paid full attention to this custom treating the sight of such trophies in the Balkans as a clear-cut line between civilised and barbarian existence. The custom reminded them, as a German author put it, “of the naivety of the Homeric age” (Hertzberg 1853: 19). At the beginning of the 20 th century the custom was considered proof that in the Balkans “but a century ago much of the population was as wild as the Red Indians of the same date” (Durham 1920: 26). Sir La- yard, for instance, famous in later life for his discovering of Nineveh, described the following picture from Cetinje in 1839: “(A) number of gory heads with their long tufts of hair waving in the wind, the trophies of a recent raid upon the neighbouring Turks. It was a hideous and disgusting sight which first greet- ed the traveller on his arrival at the residence of Head-Hunting in Europe Montenegrin Heroes, Turkish Barbarians and Western Observers Bozidar Jezernik Jezernik, Bozidar 2001: Head-Hunting in Europe. Montenegrin Heroes, Turkish Barbarians and Western Observers. – Ethnologia Europaea 31: 21–36. From the 19th century onwards, Western travellers paid full attention to the custom of cutting-off human heads in the Balkans which they perceived as a clear- cut line between civilised and barbarian forms of existence. The image of the Balkans and its people in these travel reports was seasoned with a liberal measure of partiality and biases, for it was not unimportant at all who did it. Montenegrins head-cutters were heroes, “Turkish” head-cutters were the barbarians. On the other hand, the vivid interest by Westerners showed for the “barbarous custom” in the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries indicate that in the West the barbarian “Other” had been but repressed rather than completely eliminated. Prof. Dr. Bozidar Jezernik, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Ljubljana, Zavetiska 5, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. E-mail: bozidar.jezernik@uni-lj.si the Priest-Prince. Our guides, however, pointed to it with exultation. They had all, as it was the duty of the warlike inhabitants of the Black Mountains, taken part in raids upon the Mus- sulmans and in the border wars, which were constantly taking place, and had their stories to relate of slaughtered Turks and bloody spoils, such as those exposed on the round tower” (Layard 1903: I, 128). During his stay in Cetinje Sir Layard visited the vladika of Montenegro whose fort was dec- orated with Turkish heads. To contrast this custom with civilisation more clearly, he de- scribed how the vladika had procured a billiard- table (a symbol of civilisation) from Trieste and that they played together several times. “On one occasion whilst we were so engaged, a loud noise of shouting and of firing of guns was heard from without. It proceeded from a party of Montenegrin warriors who had returned from a successful raid into Turkish territory of Scu- tari, and, accompanied by a crowd of idlers, were making a triumphal entry into the village. They carried in a cloth, held up between them, bizarre phenomena. The cutting off heads, as of scandal (Durham 1905: 148). From the 19 Copyright © Museum Tusculanums Press Ethnologia Europaea vol. 31: 2; e-journal. 2004. ISBN 87 635 0136 8 Copyright © Museum Tusculanums Press Ethnologia Europaea vol. 31: 1. 2004. ISBN 87 635 0136 8