Taking and preserving the heads of your defeated enemies, and keeping them as trophies. It was believed that the head was the seat of the soul, and so keeping and preserving the head meant you possessed the soul of your enemy.
Diodorus Siculus, writing in the first century BC: 'They cut off the heads of enemies slain in battle and attach them to the necks of their horses. The blood-stained spoils they hand over to their attendants and carry off as booty, while striking up a paean and singing a song of victory; and they nail up these first fruits upon their houses... they embalm in cedar oil the heads of the most distinguished enemies...'
Very Thanatari... 8-)
In the 'an Rúraíocht' Cúchulainn beheaded the three sons of Nechtan and displayed their heads on his chariot.
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