The Shrunken Head of Amazon is a severed and specially prepared
human head that is used for trophy, ritual, or trade purpose.
Last Saturday I was channel surfing and I accidentally open Nat. Geo. Channel. I sat down and got my teddy bear. We were supposed to go to Robinson Mall. I was glued to my seat. I think the episode was very inhuman. I terrified and scared because I didn’t know that are people who wants to purchase human head.
In this episode, National geographic was able to give specific details on how they perform the said Head shrinking.
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Process:
The process of creating a shrunken head begins with removing the skull from the head. An incision is made on the back of the neck and all the skin and flesh is removed from the cranium. Red seeds are placed underneath the eyelids and the eyelids are sewn shut. The mouth is held together with three palm pins.
Fat from the flesh of the head is removed. It is here that a wooden ball is placed in order to keep form. The flesh is then boiled in water that has been steeped with a number of herbs containing
tannins. It is then dried with hot rocks and sand, while molding it to retain its human feature. The skin is then rubbed down with charcoal ash. Decorative beads are added to the head.
In the headshrinking tradition, it is believed that coating the skin in ash keeps the
muisak, or avenging soul, from seeping out.
Shrunken heads are known for their
mandibular prognathism, facial distortion and shrinkage of the lateral sides of the forehead; these are artifacts of the shrinking process.
Among the
Shuar and
Achuar, the reduction of the heads was followed by a series of feasts centered on important rituals.
Trade in shrunken heads
At first, cultural restrictions meant that deaths from traditional conflict were relatively rare,
[citation needed] and few shrunken heads were prepared. When westerners created an economic demand for shrunken heads, however, there was a sharp increase in the rate of killings in an effort to supply collectors and tourists.
[6][7] The terms
headhunting and headhunting parties come from this practice. Guns were usually what the Shuar acquired in exchange for their shrunken heads, the rate being one gun per head. But weapons were not the only items
exchanged; during the 1930s, when heads were freely exchanged, a person could buy a shrunken head for about twenty-five dollars. A stop was put to this when the Peruvian and Ecuadorian governments worked together to outlaw the traffic in heads.
Also encouraged by this trade, as early as the 1870s people in
Colombia,
Panama, and Ecuador unconnected to the Jívaros began to make counterfeit
tsantsas. They used corpses from morgues, or the heads of
monkeys or
sloths. Some even used goatskin. Kate Duncan wrote in 2001 that "It has been estimated that about 80 percent of the tsantsas in private and museum hands are fraudulent," including almost all that are female or which include an entire torso rather than just a head.
[5]
Thor Heyerdahl recounts in
Kon-Tiki (1947) the various problems of getting into the Jívaro (Shuar) area in Ecuador to get
balsa wood for his expedition raft. Local people would not guide his team into the jungle for fear of being killed and their heads shrunk.
Since the 1940s, it has been illegal to import shrunken heads into the United States.
[citation needed] In 1999, the
National Museum of the American Indian repatriated the authentic shrunken heads in its collection to Ecuador.
[5] Most other countries have also banned the trade. Currently, replica shrunken heads are manufactured as curios for the
tourist trade. These are made from
leather and animal hides formed to resemble the originals.
