Tsantsa, the Shrunken Head

Paul Eijkemans

The Shuar people are also known as the People of the Shrunken Heads. The practice of taking and
shrinking an enemys head to make a tsantsa out of it after the enemy was killed in battle gave the
Shuar an undeserved label of being savages. Given the chilling character of this practice it is no
surprise that there are many travel stories and books that mention shrunken heads, including
famous books like Moby Dick and the comic The Broken Ear in which Tintin is threatened to have
his head shrunk. Though widely published, there are some gross misconceptions about these
tsantsas and why the Shuar made them. Even among contemporary Shuar there is generally
confusion to its origins.
The concept of taking body parts of slain enemies is not something unique to the Shuar and not
purely related to foregone times. War observers have infamously reported isolated cases of US
soldiers cutting the ears or fingers from their victims to use them as war trophies in both the Vietnam
War, called The American War by the Vietnamese by the way, and Operation Desert Storm. The
Shuar never took heads to keep them as trophies, though. Their reason for taking an enemy head
was very different and had a spiritual origin. Within Shuar culture it was strongly believed that if an
enemy had been killed, its vengeful spirit, or muisak, would be prevented from harming the killer if it
was trapped inside the tsantsa. This practice also prevented the muisak from entering the afterlife to
harm any ancestors of the family. The power of the spirit could also be used to enhance the
cultivation of crops. Apart from that, most battles were the result of feuds that lasted over
generations and making a tsantsa would demonstrate to slain ancestors that their blood was finally
revenged. By showing their ancestors that their heirs had fulfilled their honourable duty, warriors
would thus earn respect from them, as well as earning respect from their fellow tribesmen. Though
often popularly presented as a widespread practice, in reality not that many heads were taken.
For a long time in Shuar history the shrunken heads were a practical result of intertribal warfare,
especially between the Shuar and the Achuar, a related people with similar customs but a different
language. At times head taking raids that included dozens of participants were organised to obtain
new heads, taken indiscriminately from men, women and children. These raids were primarily
focused at people living in distant territories. Of course, as birds usually also do not poop in their own
nests. The reasons for taking heads and with it the intensity of taking them, changed during the
second half of the 19th century when the white man became aware of the tsantsa. Because of its
curiosity value, many Europeans cultivated an interest in obtaining a shrunken head; and this desire
created an economic demand for shrunken heads that replaced the practical and spiritual reasons for
headhunting. The result was a sharp rise in the rate of killings in order to be able to supply collectors
and tourists with tsantsas. The general exchange rate for one head was one gun, an item heavily
prized within the Shuar community. Never in the history of the Shuar was there such ferocious local
warfare, and the focus on headhunting for economic purposes created many tensions within the
Shuar world. These tensions and their resulting fear still play an important role within Shuar culture;
and in many discussions the topic regularly pops up.

The rise in demand also encouraged people unrelated to the Shuar to produce counterfeits in large
numbers. The heads used for these counterfeits were obtained from monkeys, sloths or even
morgue corpses. It needs to be mentioned though that in ancient times the Shuar also had a practice
of making a tsantsa of a sloths head as they believed that the sloth was the only animal in the forest
that had a muisak. It is estimated that most shrunken heads nowadays found in museums or in
private collections are frauds. Today, in many markets in Shuar territory, you can find fake tsantsas
that would make a great souvenir for Halloween. That is, I hope that they are fakes.
This does not mean that shrinking heads is something that has completely gone and thus is a relic
from the past. There are two reasons why it still occurs, though not at the levels of previous times.
Firstly, if anyone does really bad things to a community or family and they want to put an end to the
pro-creation of these energies, it might be decided to take the head of the evil-doer. This decision is,
however, never taken lightly and the whole process is surrounded by elaborate rituals to be
absolutely sure that it is the right decision to take and that there will not be any negative side-effects
affecting the community. These rituals include many ceremonies at sacred waterfalls and dances
with the whole community or family, for which any outsiders are most definitely excluded. Another
reason why the tsantsas are not a thing of the past is that the commercial trade of shrunken heads
still goes on but on a very small scale. In a similar way as the Chinese have an appetite for rhinoceros
horns to make medicine, there are still Westerners who are apparently prepared to pay many
thousands of dollars to criminal groups to obtain an original shrunken head that they feel has magic
qualities and thus energetic potency. Whether this is true or not: behind every shrunken head is a life
cut short.
It is not very difficult to make a tsantsa. You need about a weeks time and, not to forget, a human
head. When a warrior had decapitated his enemy he would take the head to a place near a river.
There he would remove the skin, including the hair, from the skull by making a small incision in the
back of the neck and peeling the skin off the skull. The skull itself was discarded and given to the river
to offer it to the anacondas living in the water. Removing the skull also had a practical significance as
walking back with only a light load, the skin itself, enabled a fast retreat from enemy territory. Such
was necessary to prevent retaliation attacks from a regrouped enemy. Once in safe territory the
preparation continued. With a knife any fat was removed from the flesh on the inside and a wooden
ball was inserted to allow the head to retain some of its form. Red seeds were placed under the
eyelids. Then the eyes were sewn shut with a fibre, and the mouth was closed with three wooden
pins. The skin was then put into a boiling pot and cooked with special herbs for about one and a-half
hours in hot water. It was not cooked any longer because the hair would fall out. After cooking, the
skin would have shrunk to about a third of its original size. It now had a rubbery texture and a black
colour because of the tannins in the herbs. This blackening was further enhanced by rubbing charcoal
into the skin. The skin was then dried in the sun and any remaining burned flesh was removed from
the inside of the skin. The slit in the neck was sewn close. What was left was something that looks a
bit like a large black rubber glove with hair on it.
Heated pebbles were then put on the inside of the skin to further shrink it and to burn out any fat
that was not already removed. These pebbles were constantly rotated to prevent any scorching of
the skin. The process was then continued with hot sand when the head had shrunk to such an extent
that the pebbles became too big to put them on the inside of the skin. The advantage of sand is that

it also can enter crevices in the ears and nose that cannot be reached with hot stones. After using
them on the inside, the heated pebbles were subsequently used to work on the outside of the head
and helped to form its final shape. This whole process of using hot pebbles and hot sand was
repeated for several days until the head has about a quarter of its original size, roughly a little larger
than a mans fist. The finishing touch was applied by further drying the skin over a fire to make it
firm, including a hardening of the lips which was done with a heated piece of metal such as a
machete. The wooden pins were then taken out of the lips and replaced by a dangling cotton string.
The reason for not using a string earlier is that it would have burned in the heating process. A hole
was then made in the top of the head to attach a rope so that the warrior would be able to hang the
tsantsa around his neck during the subsequent celebrations.
After the tsantsa was finished there were at least two and sometimes even three celebrations over
the course of a year. The celebrations had two main goals. Foremost was to please the deceased
ancestors of the warrior by showing them that their deaths were avenged and to demonstrate to
them that he possessed the courage of a warrior. Secondly, it was to show the same courage to his
fellow tribe members and earn their respect. The tsantsa celebrations were a great source of joy for
those attending as the feasts boosted the feeling of similarity among the hundred to one hundred
and fifty Shuar that would generally attend the festivities which would last several days, during which
manioc beer flowed in large quantities. During the festivities there were strict regulations not to
engage in any quarrels or fighting to prevent the muisak leaving the tsantsa and entering those who
quarrelled. This enabled families that would normally be engaged in feuds to jointly celebrate in
peace. In the absence of any date-keeping, the days between consequent celebrations were
determined by a banana clock. Every one of the male participants would receive a green plantain
banana from the same bunch at the first celebration and when this banana had ripened, it was time
to come back for the second celebration. After the second celebration, or third celebration if
applicable, the tsantsa was usually discarded by leaving it in the woods.
The form of the dances in tsantsa celebrations is an illustration of the connectedness of the
antediluvian Shuar with their rainforest surrounding as the dances during the celebration mimic the
behaviour of the tinkishap insect. This insect is a beetle-like creature that lives in dry wood and
stings, though it is difficult to catch as it quickly moves deep into its habitat as soon as anyone
approaches: during one Natem ceremony in his shaman lodge, Miguel and I for hours unfruitfully
tried to catch some, though we miserably failed due to the effects of the medicine. This tinkishap
insect has a celebration on its own: at night they come together in a circle to dance. Then one by one
they start to rave in front of their peers; fiercely flipping their wings. Most will do great but if one of
them mal-performs then the others take him off stage and quickly kill it. A more apt comparison with
the context of a genuine tsantsa killing is probably not possible, so that is why within the chonta
celebrations the Shuar dance in the same way as the tinkishap does in its ceremony.
The Ecuadorian Government effectively banned the headhunting wars in the mid-twentieth century.
This was to the dismay of many young Shuar who considered the headhunting wars to be an
excellent chance to acquire courage in battle. In 1981, the Paquisha War broke out between Ecuador
and Peru and unofficially the word was that Peruvian heads could be taken. It did not take long to get
about two thousand young Shuar together to defend Ecuador against the Peruvians; the incentive
was high enough. Miguel Chiriap was twenty years old when the war with Peru started. He joined the

army in the Arutam-unit that consisted only of Shuar, but he never participated in the fighting. Some
of his cousins that also joined the Arutam-unit did though, and they had a fierce confrontation with
the Peruvians. Before the battle started the Shuar took their sacred medicines of Tsaank and Natem,
like many generations of their ancestors had before them. It made them very determined and gave
them much vision and in these visions they were able to spot the enemy in the forest. The Peruvians
were no match for them. For some reason the Peruvian army had sent kids to battle, and had given
them drugs to make them loose their fears. It was very easy for the Shuar to shoot them and they fell
in great numbers. Nevertheless, the battle was won in Shuar-style. Usually the Shuar do not confront
their enemies directly but find the best way to defeat their enemies without too much loss to
themselves. That is why they went straight for the leader of the enemy unit to capture him. This way
they ended the battle, and it turned out that the Shuar only lost one of their men. What they did
with this Peruvian army commander? Well, the rumour goes that they took his head, brought it to
their hometown and of course made a tsantsa out of it.
Miguel does not have any tsantsas and has absolutely no interest in them as he sees the practice
itself as a gross violation of human rights. He does not know many other shamans who have them,
but there are some who do. Even if you do not realise that a life is taken with every purchase and
would like to buy one, it is very difficult to acquire them. It is also a risky business because whenever
you buy a shrunken head it is possible that at any moment in the future there may be a not-so-happy
family knocking on your door asking you to return it to them, voluntarily or involuntarily. They might
even take a little souvenir back to their home country to make up for the capital travel costs. If a
shaman shrinks a head nowadays, then it is almost always the head of an animal. The purpose of this
practice is to acquire the power of that animal which can subsequently be used in healing
ceremonies. Miguel also does not engage in that practice as he feels that not a single animal should
be killed for healing if other techniques are available; which is also one of the reasons why he is not
in favour of the widely spread practice among the Quechua-people of Ecuador which involves taking
energy readings through the guts of a marmot. For that kind of work he prefers to stick to his tarot
cards which work just as well.
The fear of having your head taken is deeply engraved in the Shuar collective. If you want to make
life difficult for your enemies the only thing that you need to do is to spread the rumour that they are
taking heads for commercial purposes and those stupid enough to believe those rumours will start to
oppose your enemies. Miguel has that happening a lot to him. Other shamans who are jealous of
Miguel's success, both inside and outside of Ecuador, have regularly spread rumours that he is in the
headhunting business. To support these rumours they claim that the real reason he goes to Europe is
not to do healing ceremonies but to do promotional tours to acquire new clients to sell tsantsas to;
and that all these groups of foreigners come to the house of the Chiriap family to make new
purchases and not to take his medicine. These rumours are of course false and absolutely ridiculous,
but that they should not be taken too lightly is demonstrated by the story of Freddy, Miguel's cousin.
I met Freddy once and took an immediately dislike to him. He had some really weird energy around
him that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Freddy was in his late twenties and had been
fighting a few years in the jungle of Colombia for the FARC where he had learned a lot of guerrilla
tactics. There were some who feared him for that but I doubted his combat capacities because he
was quite plump. He was visiting his uncle and aunt for a few days, and like anyone else he was very
welcome at their house. On the first evening of Freddys visit Miguel's daughters came to my room to

warn me to lock all my valuables away; with Freddy around there was a chance that things would
magically disappear. Freddy was clearly not a saint, but nobody deserves what happened to him six
months later.
One of Freddy's acquaintances was the leader of a criminal group that was known to be involved in
the commercial trade of shrunken heads. Although Freddy was not involved in that business himself,
the fact that he had stayed in his acquaintance house for some time after he had returned from
Colombia was enough to automatically make him a suspect. When rumours were subsequently
spread that Freddy took heads, some people decided to take action. A group of about fifteen from
the villages of Tink, Sasapas, Piunts San Jos and San Luis Yantsas assembled and set out to capture
him. In the afternoon, when they had finally caught Freddy, they dragged him to a school in San Luis
where they chained him up. Watched by a crowd of bystanders from the various communities,
including many children, his masked capturers started to club him with wooden bats and whip him
with metal cables. Some of the bystanders stepped in and participated. They broke Freddys face in
several places with rifle butts and beat most of his teeth out of his mouth. Then at dusk they dragged
him along a one kilometre road towards the Zamorra River. There they tortured him for several more
hours. His tormenters cut parts of his ears off and put a knife in one of his eyeballs. In the evening
they finally finished him off and threw his chained and mutilated body into the Zamora River. Up to
now three have been jailed for this crime; hopefully more will follow, including some of the
bystanders.
One of my friends once had someone invade his house. The invader tied up his partner and kept her
hostage for several hours, threatening to kill her. The police finally captured the lunatic and he was
put to court. Despite that he had declared that it was his greatest desire in life to slowly torture a
woman to death, he was set free after a relatively short time in jail instead of being locked up forever
in a mental institution. My friend therefore keeps loaded guns all around his house to be able to kill
the man as soon as he sets foot on his property. Like me, he has no problems with recycling people if
necessary. It is sick people like this lunatic who traditionally would get the tsantsa-treatment within
the Shuar community. I pray for all that nothing will ever happen, but if something does and my
friend shoots him, I hope that he grants me the head of the lunatic. I would be more than happy to
practise my head shrinking skills without actually having to kill anyone; and make a tsantsa out of it
for him.

This article is an excerpt from the book Uwishin, to be published later this year. It is about the
authors experiences with the indigenous shamans of the Upper Amazon. The author can be
contacted via email at paul@tsunki.com, or the website www.Tsunki.com where you can also
subscribe to a newsletter. The author is open to enquiries and constructive discussions on the use of
plant medicines. You are cordially invited to share the link to this article with others.