Reduced to the size of an apple with their eyes and lips stitched shut, it's easy to forget that these iconic shrunken heads are, in fact, the remains of real humans who once lived and breathed.
So blurred is the line between cultural artifact and whimsical tchotchke that it's all but impossible to tell which tsantsa are authentic products of a lost culture and which were fabricated to cash in on our fetish for the strange and the exotic.
The history of the unusual funerary practice is a murky one, obscured by a lack of written records and conflicting evidence. Heads were typically severed at the base of the neck and strung on a vine or thrown into a basket to be taken back for processing. The scalp was split open with a bamboo knife or a sharp stone or shell, with the skull removed and discarded into a nearby river.
We can only imagine the thoughts of explorers and missionaries chancing upon these powerful totems. Yet by the early to mid-19th century, the Shuar and Achuar were trading with nearby European settlers. Among the items to make their way into the hands of collectors around the world were these ceremonial magic vessels.
Some accounts suggest even authentic heads had been adorned with hair and other materials from animals. Questionable news reports even suggested unclaimed human bodies from local hospitals provided the materials on occasion.
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