Headhunting is the practice of hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing the victim, although sometimes more portable body parts are taken instead as trophies. Headhunting was practiced in historic times in parts of Europe, East Asia, Oceania, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Mesoamerica, South America, West Africa, and Central Africa.

The Murut, alternatively referred to as Tagol/Tahol, constitute an indigenous ethnic community comprising 29 distinct sub-ethnic groups dwelling within the northern inland territories of Borneo. Characterized by their rich cultural diversity, the Murutic languages form a linguistic family encompassing approximately half a dozen closely intertwined Austronesian languages. Murut populations exhibit dispersion in Malaysia's Sabah and the northern part of Sarawak, as well as in the country of Brunei and the Indonesian North Kalimantan Province. Furthermore, the Murut people have close connections with the Tidung, who historically inhabited Borneo's east coast region that underwent processes of Islamization and Malayalization,