Shrunken head

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Shrunken Head, exhibited in the Museo de América ( Madrid )
Female Tsantsa in a temporary exhibition at the Science Museum ( London )

A shrunken head , actually Tsantsa ( Jivaro ), is a preparation made from the shrunken skin of the head of a dead person. Real shrunken heads were made as trophies by headhunters of some indigenous peoples of South America and used for cultic purposes until the 19th century .

background

Headhunting was common in many regions of the world, but the custom of making shrunken heads from the heads of killed enemies is known only by a few peoples from the tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin . In the belief of these peoples, after a successful headhunt, the life force of the dead passed on to the hunter by performing a series of complex rituals and making the head trophy (tsantsa). In addition to this function, the tsantsas of their own clan should favor future hunting successes, health, the luck of war, harvest successes and the fertility of women. The treatment of the heads was regarded as the "completion" of the blood revenge and ultimate humiliation , which, however, could not rule out further attacks and counter attacks.

Tsantsas were only taken from the head trophies of killed enemy warriors, but never from members of the own tribe or from blood relatives , even if they were enemies with them. The Aguaruna and Shuar in Peru and Ecuador still practice this custom today, but they no longer use human heads for their tsantsa, but the heads of sloths .

The first reports of headhunting and shrunken heads among the Jivaro were written by the Spanish conquistador Miguel de Estete in 1530 from the coastal area of Ecuador , whose inhabitants confronted the conquistadors with particular fearlessness and cruelty after several unsuccessful attempts at conquest . In 1861, a shrunken head was shown for the first time in an ethnographic exhibition in London . The Finnish ethnologist Rafael Karsten used several stays in South America from 1916 to 1947 to study the practices and rituals of headhunting and the spiritual background for making and using the shrunken heads.

Manufacture

Size comparison of a human skull with a shrunken head

The trophies, mostly the size of a fist, were made from the skin of an opponent's severed head. To do this, the head was cut off as close to the torso as possible. The successful hunter carried his head with him when retreating or fleeing, and at the first opportunity a ritual was performed to control the victim's spirit of revenge. The scalp was then cut open on the back below the cervical vertebra and carefully detached from the bone and muscle tissue.

The eyelids and neckline were sewn from the inside. The mouth was sewn up or closed with bamboo needles to prevent the dead man's spirit from spreading . The inside of the scalp was then filled with some sand and hung in a specially made pot with fresh river water and herbal additives and carefully heated until the skin sack began to shrink. The water was not allowed to boil, otherwise the scalp hairs would come loose from the skin, which were seen as the seat of the soul and life force . Then the nose and ear openings were temporarily closed and a liana ring was sewn onto the neck opening. Then the skin sack was ritually swung out with three small heated stones.

The mummification and shrinkage to the final size took place by means of fine sand heated in the fire, which was filled into the skin sack and swirled in it so often until the head finally reached the desired size. Then the inside of the scalp was cleaned and the facial features were modeled. The bamboo needles of the mouth closure were painted with red paint, wrapped with red textile threads or replaced by an artistic lacing.

Possibly this was followed by a smoking of the shrunken head for preservation and to achieve a dark skin color. Finally, a ribbon was attached to the hair swivel so that the successful hunter could wear his trophy around his neck during the victory ceremony. This procedure could extend over several days or weeks and was characterized by strict rules on work processes, rituals, behavior and behavior. Young hunters were mostly supported by older, experienced warriors and medicine people. The shrinking process of the scalp results from the gluing of the scalp's collagen during heat treatment in hot water, as is used in some tanning processes . The final shrinkage occurs through the removal of water (volume reduction) during the final drying.

aftermath

Presentation of human specimens in Buchenwald concentration camp, including two shrunken heads
Shrunken heads in a
Seattle curio shop

In the 19th and 20th centuries, shrunken heads were a popular souvenir from sailors and travelers from South America, making them a coveted object for ethnographic collectors and museums in Europe and North America. The resulting massive increase in demand was met by the indigenous peoples and, quite early on, by their neighbors and various groups of counterfeiters. This commissioned work, which was no longer ritually but commercially motivated, no longer relied exclusively on opponents defeated in battle, but also on specifically hunted people of various origins, which quickly included women and exhumed corpses. Fritz W. up de Graff reported in 1923 about a man from Panama who made shrunken heads and even entire shrink bodies, two of which are now in the holdings of the National Museum of the American Indian . Shrink head replicas have also been made and distributed from the skin and hair of goats and other animals since the 1920s. Some of these replicas are difficult to distinguish from real human preparations at first glance.

When the Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated by the 3rd US Army , two shrunken heads were found, which an SS doctor had made from the heads of two executed Polish refugees according to information provided by camp inmates and which were presented as evidence during the Buchenwald trials in the Dachau internment camp were.

Since June 2015 there has been a judicial investigation in Munich as to whether a shrunken head must be buried under German funeral law. The question is whether it is a historical art object or a human body part. The question arose during an attempted auction by the Hermann Historica auction house.

Museum exhibition practice

It is currently being discussed whether trophy skulls, which were previously considered art and ethnographic items, should be removed from the showcases of museums, auction houses and galleries. It is now considered unethical to present human remains in their cultural context or even to strive for an increase in value through trade. In its ethical guidelines for the “exhibition of sensitive objects”, the International Council of Museums (ICOM) demands, however, only that these “be presented with tact and respect for the feelings of human dignity that all peoples have”.

Movies

  • Headhunters Amazonia - The Myth of the Jivaros. Documentary, Arte , France 2002
  • Mysteries in the Museum - The Secret of the Shrunken Heads. Documentary, kabel eins documentary , German premiere: October 25, 2016
  • Revealed: Riddles of History - Secret of the Shrunken Heads. Documentary, ZDFinfo , Great Britain 2017

literature

  • Andreas Schlothauer: A special trophy treatment - the shrunken heads of the Jivaro peoples. In: Alfried Wieczorek , Wilfried Rosendahl (ed.): Skull cult - head and skull in the cultural history of man. Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2454-1 , pp. 217-223 ( PDF ).

Web links

Wiktionary: Shrunken head  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Shrunken Heads  - collection of images, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e Andreas Schlothauer: A special trophy treatment - The shrunken heads of the Jivaro peoples . In: Alfried Wieczorek, Wilfried Rosendahl (ed.): Skull cult - head and skull in the cultural history of man . Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-7954-2454-1 , p. 217-223 .
  2. The Myth of the Invincible Headhunters ( Memento of January 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Arte.tv. February 1, 2006, accessed July 14, 2019.
  3. Rafael Karsten : The head-hunters of Western Amazonas. The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru . Helsingfors 1935 (English).
  4. Rafael Karsten : Some critical remarks on Ethnological Field-research in South America . Helsingfors 1954 (English).
  5. ^ Fritz W. up de Graff: Head Hunters of the Amazon - Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure . New York 1923 (English).
  6. Photo No. 009.012, taken between April 11th and 15th, 1945. Buchenwald photo archive, Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation (French explanation, accessed on August 15, 2012).
  7. Ingrid Thurner: Who are the barbarians here? , in: Wiener Zeitung , January 2, 2018 (query May 2, 2020)
  8. Natalie Bayer, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński and Nora Sternfeld (eds.): Curating as an anti-racist practice . Berlin: De Gruyter 2017, DOI: [1] (query May 2, 2020)
  9. ^ ICOM - International Council of Museums: Ethical Guidelines for Museums by ICOM . Revised 2nd edition of the German version, 2006, p. 19 (query on May 2, 2020)
  10. Headhunters Amazonia - The Myth of the Jivaros ( Memento from April 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  11. Mysteries in the Museum - The Secret of the Shrunken Heads. In: Fernsehserien.de. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .
  12. Revealed: Riddles of History - Secret of the Shrunken Heads. In: ZDF.de. Retrieved March 2, 2018 .