Shrunken head from the upper Amazon region, in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

A shrunken head is a real human head that has been prepared for display. Shrunken head. ... Shrunken head. ... Amazon River basin The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. ... Pitt Rivers Museum interior The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Trinomial name Homo sapiens sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Humans, or human beings, are bipedal primates belonging to the mammalian species Homo sapiens (Latin: wise man or knowing man) in the family Hominidae (the great apes). ... For other uses of the word head, see head (disambiguation). ...

The manufacture of shrunken heads was formerly the specialty of a number of ethnic groups that practiced headhunting, most notably the Shuar (formerly known as Jívaro) people of present day Ecuador and Peru. Among the Shuar, a shrunken head is known as a tsantsa ^[1], also transliterated tzantza. This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... Shuar, in the Shuar language, means people.[1] The people who speak the Shuar language live in tropical rainforest between the upper mountains of the Andes, and the tropical rainforests and savannas of the Amazonian lowlands, in Ecuador and Peru. ... Transliteration in a narrow sense is a mapping from one script into another script. ...

After World War II, the shrunken head of a Polish prisoner was found at the Buchenwald concentration camp, where it was displayed in the camp centre to terrify the prisoners. The "shrunken head of Buchenwald," as it was known, was presented as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials by U.S. Executive Trial Counsel Thomas J. Dodd. ^[2] Slave laborers in the Buchenwald concentration camp (Elie Wiesel is second row, seventh from left). ... It has been suggested that Internment be merged into this article or section. ... The Süddeutsche Zeitung announces The Verdict in Nuremberg. ... Thomas Joseph Dodd (May 15, 1907-May 24, 1971) was a United States Senator and Representative from Connecticut. ...

How it was done

Shrunken head, on display in the Science Museum.

The skull was removed from the head: the maker would make an incision on the back of the neck and proceeded to remove all the skin and flesh from the cranium. Afterwards, they sewed the eyelids shut and held the mouth together with splinters. Fat from the flesh of the head was removed. The flesh was then boiled in water in which a number of herbs containing tannins were steeped, then dried with hot rocks and sand, while being molded by the preparer to retain its human feature. The lips were sewn shut, and various decorative beads were added to the head. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (864 × 1152 pixel, file size: 266 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Shrunken head. ... Image File history File links Size of this preview: 450 × 600 pixel Image in higher resolution (864 × 1152 pixel, file size: 266 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Shrunken head. ... The Science Museum on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. ... It has been suggested that temporal fenestra be merged into this article or section. ... Fats consist of a wide group of compounds that are generally soluble in organic solvents and largely insoluble in water. ... Tannins are astringent, bitter-tasting plant polyphenols that bind and precipitate proteins. ...

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. This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Although appearing to be shrunken,it should be noted that the circumference of the head remained virtually unchanged.

The process to reduce the size of the heads was accompanied by a ritual, which culminated with la Fiesta de la Victoria (Spanish for "victory party") celebrated by the entire community.

Why it was done

Shrunken head exhibited at the Lightner Museum in St. Augustine, Florida.

The practice of making shrunken heads originally had religious significance; the heads were believed to harness the spirits of those enemies and compel them to serve the shrinker. Image:Shrunken Head - Lightner Museum. ... Image:Shrunken Head - Lightner Museum. ... Tower detail of the Lightner Museum in St. ... Nickname: Location in St. ...

They believed in the existence of three fundamental spirits:

• Wakani - innate to humans thus surviving their death, later turning into vapor.
• Arutam - literally "vision" or "power," protects humans from a violent death and assures their survival.
• Muisak - vengeful spirit, which surfaces when an arutam spirit-carrying person is murdered.

To block the last spirit from using its powers, they decided to sever their enemy's heads and shrink them. It also served as a way of warning those enemies.

Trade in shrunken heads

At first, cultural restrictions meant that deaths from traditional conflict were relatively rare^{[citation needed]}, and few shrunken heads were made. 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^[3] . A stop was put to this when the Peruvian and Ecuadorian governments outlawed the traffic in heads.

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 boat. Local people would not guide his team into the forest for fear of becoming themselves shrunken heads. Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914, in Larvik, Norway – April 18, 2002, in Colla Micheri, Italy) was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a scientific background in zoology and geography. ... The Kon-Tiki raft is shown on the cover of the DVD of the documentary. ... Shuar, in the Shuar language, means people.[1] The people who speak the Shuar language live in tropical rainforest between the upper mountains of the Andes, and the tropical rainforests and savannas of the Amazonian lowlands, in Ecuador and Peru. ... Binomial name Ochroma lagopus Balsa (Ochroma lagopus, synonym ) is a large, fast-growing tree to 30 m tall, native from tropical South America north to southern Mexico. ...

Currently, replica shrunken heads are manufactured as curios for the tourist trade. These are made from leather and animal hides carved to resemble the originals. Replica shrunken heads, due to their provocative nature, are also popular in the hotrod culture, where they are often seen hanging from rearview mirrors as ornaments. Tourists on Oahu, Hawaii Tourism is travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes or the provision of services to support this leisure travel. ... Modern leather-working tools Leather is a material created through the tanning of hides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. ... T-bucket hot rod Hot rods are older, often historical, cars. ...

Shrunken heads in popular culture

In 1975, Vincent Price promoted a toy kit called Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture, by Whiting Crafts, a division of Milton Bradley. It was frequently advertised in comic books. Vincent Leonard Price Jr. ... Milton Bradley (1836 - 1911) was a game pioneer, credited by many with launching the game industry in North America. ...

Maurice Santos has written a mystery called Tsantsa with the plot based on a shrunken head. ^[4]

R.L. Stine's Goosebumps, How I Got My Shrunken Head, tells about a boy's adventure in the jungle with a shrunken head with magic powers. Robert Lawrence Stine (born October 8, 1943), better known as R. L. Stine, is an American writer. ... R. L. Stine with some of his creations. ... How I Got My Shrunken Head is the 39th book in R. L. Stines Goosebumps series about a boy who receives a shrunken head from his aunt, who explores jungles for a living. ...

"Mister Taylor,"[1] a short story by Augusto Monterroso, uses shrunken heads as a comparison to the economic imperialism of the United States in Latin America.^[5] Augusto Monterroso (1921 - February 7, 2003) was a Guatemalan writer. ... Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting the culture or language of one nation in another. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ...

James Rollins's novel Amazonia features a Shuar woman skilled at the lost art of tsantza. Under the pen name James Rollins, former veterinarian Dr. Jim Czajkowski (1961 - ) writes such bestselling, action-packed adventure-thrillers as Subterranean (1999), Excavation (2000), Deep Fathom (2001), Amazonia (2002), Ice Hunt (2003), Sandstorm (2004), and Map of Bones Rollins is an amateur spelunker and a certified scuba diver. ...

Shrunken heads appear at various points in the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, though they were not mentioned in the source book. One of them has a Jamaican English accent. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third fantasy adventure film in the popular Harry Potter films series, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. ... Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ...

One of the ghosts in the film Beetlejuice has a shrunken head; the film ends with Beetlejuice himself having his head shrunk. For the animated series based on the film, see Beetlejuice (TV series). ...

In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Captain Jack Sparrow's father shows Jack a shrunken head in the response to Jack's question, "How's mum?" Captain Jack Sparrow is a fictional pirate and one of the primary characters of the Pirates of the Caribbean film trilogy: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), Dead Mans Chest (2006), and the as-of-yet unreleased third installment, At Worlds End (2007). ...

In the video game Halo 2 there is an emblem entitled "Tsantsa" as an option resembling a shrunken head. This article is about the video game. ...

References

1. ^ Steven Rubenstein (2006) Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads. Cultural Anthropology vol 22 issue 3 pp 357-399
2. ^ Lawrence Douglas, “The Shrunken Head of Buchenwald: Icons of Atrocity at Nuremberg,” Visual Culture and the Holocaust, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2001) p. 275.
3. ^ Bennett Ross, Jane. 1984 "Effects of Contact on Revenge Hostilities Among the Achuara Jívaro," in Warfare Culture, and Environment, ed. R.B. Ferguson, Orlando: Academic Press; Steel, Daniel 1999 “Trade Goods and Jívaro Warfare: The Shuar 1850-1957, and the Achuar, 1940-1978,” in Ethnohistory 46(4): 745-776.
4. ^ http://bookz.ru/authors/santos-moris/santosmoris01.html
5. ^ http://www.jstor.org/view/00182133/ap020339/02a00450/0

External links

• Head Hunting: History of the Shuar
• Shrunken heads from the Discovery Channel[2]
• General information
• Description of the head shrinking process (in Spanish)
• Picture of a shrunken head from the Buchenwald concentration camp