Head Shrinking: The Jivaros Recipe

Up until about a hundred years ago, it was not that great of an idea to go to the rain forests of Peru and Ecuador for vacation. Sure, there would have been the lovely wildlife, the beautiful scenery, the interesting culture, and the exciting adventure; but is that all worth losing your head?

In the hills of Peru and Ecuador, lived the Jivaros (he-var-ohs), a notorious tribe with the bad reputation of head hunting. Now I know most of you thought and maybe still think shrunken heads are a silly myth, and there's no such thing, but there is, and they have been found in the camps of the Jivaros numerous times. Now... I bet I know what the next question on your mind is... "How did they shrink 'em?" right? Well, today is your lucky day! Here's how this South American tribe turned people's lovely plump heads into shrivelled up shrunken ones.

First off, where did they get the heads? Well... during battles actually... When they fought their enemies, it was considered a major honor to bring back the severed head of one for shrinking. Ok now lets move on to the good stuff...[ WARNING! The following text contains methods for the shrinking of heads. If you are offended by such methods, please exit this hub. If you're sane, and want to learn about this cool process, keep reading.]... After bringing home the head, they would make a vertical slit in the back of the ... *cough*.... victim's neck. Because of this slit, they could now grab the skin and flesh, and slowly peel it off of the skull like you would the peel of a banana. After peeling it up and over the skull, they proceeded to scrape out the insides of the flesh, and later on sewing the severed head's eyes shut. The mouth was held shut, with the assistance of some wooden pins and string. They were now ready to start a-cookin.

They heated up their crock pots, and proceeded to boil the skin from the severed head, in a mixture of herbs for a couple of hours, which greatly reduced it's size to about half, and kept the hair from falling out. Now, it was time to sew the thing up, by repairing the slit they made earlier on. Then, they placed piping hot stones and sand in the skull, to dry it up. Once it was nice and plump, they gave it a good polish, after all, we want it to look nice right?

Finally, they tied up the heads (using the hair) to a wooden pole, and placed them over a fire for the night, making sure the fire was smoky enough. THe next day, they polished it up once more, and decorated it with feathers and shells and a whole bunch of decorative stuff, so it could give off the impresion that it was....*cough*.... cute.

Now you're thinking, why did they go through this whole process? Well... the Jivaros believed that if you possessed a shrunken head, you actually possessed the imprisoned soul of your enemy, and it was called a Tsantsa (tzan-tsa).

I hope you've enjoyed this hub as much as I've enjoyed researching about it. For more information concerning head shrinking, please consult any of the below links.

Shrunken Heads - Wikipedia

How to Prepare a Shrunken Head: History of the Shuar: Shrunken Heads

Doc Bwana's Shrunken Head Museum!

Also here's a video of some shrunken heads:

If you enjoyed this hub, you might enjoy some of my other hubs:

Chartjackers: The Youtube Sensation that Swooped the Nation

There, I Fixed It: Epic Kludges + Jury Rigs

Victoria's Secret Catalogue