The ‘Shrunken Head’ Returning Home

Shrunken Head Displayed in Georgia Was Returned to Ecuador.

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The ‘shrunken head’ was once an export product of the Amazon basin. Made by cutting off an enemy’s head, removing the skull and the internal organs, and then boiling it in water until it shrank to the size of a fist, this head carried a magical meaning. By sewing the mouth and eyes shut, the defeated enemy’s soul would be unable to escape the head and take revenge. Kept confined that way for about two years, the soul would lose its power. In the late 1800s, Europeans took an interest in the trophies of the Indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Eventually, even specialized producers who manufactured these trophies (counterfeits, of course) appeared. This head, once displayed in a museum in the United States and once a human being, is now returning home.

According to the paper Recently identified features that help to distinguish ceremonial tsantsa from commercial shrunken heads Author links open overlay panel, the counterfeits were made in the same way Europeans made gloves.