The Science of Shrinking Human Heads: Tribal Warfare and Revenge among the South American Jivaro-Shuar
- 1 November 2004
- journal article
- Published by Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) in Neurosurgery
- Vol. 55 (5), 1215-1221
- https://doi.org/10.1227/01.neu.0000140986.83616.28
Abstract
THE PRACTICE OF “head-shrinking” has been the proper domain not of Africa but rather of the denizens of South America. Specifically, in the post-Columbian period, it has been most famously the practice of a tribe of indigenous people commonly called the Jivaro or Jivaro-Shuar. The evidence suggests that the Jivaro-Shuar are merely the last group to retain a custom widespread in northwestern South America. In both ceramic and textile art of the pre-Columbian residents of Peru, the motif of trophy heads smaller than normal life-size heads commonly recurs; the motif is seen even in surviving carvings in stone and shell. Moreover, although not true shrunken heads, trophy heads found in late pre-Columbian and even post-Columbian graves of the region demonstrate techniques of display very similar to those used by the Jivaro-Shuar, at least some of which are best understood in the context of head-shrinking. Regardless, the Jivaro-Shuar and their practices provide an illustrative counterexample to popular myth regarding the culture and science of the shrinking of human heads.Keywords
This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit:
- Tribal and Chiefly Warfare in South AmericaPublished by University of Michigan Library ,1994
- The JívaroPublished by University of California Press ,1972