SYSK Selects: How Shrunken Heads Work

In this week's SYSK Select episode, although U.S. museum collections are rife with counterfeits, shrunken heads are far from fiction. The Shuar tribe of Ecuador has shrunken heads for centuries. Learn the methodical process of shrinking a head and how they're used in this episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
M Hey everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's
s Y s K Select, I've chosen Shrunken Heads, one
of the all time great Stuff you Should Know episodes.
It originally ran in June of two thousand eleven. And
although it will teach you step by step how to
shrink a human head, you should not try this at home.

(00:24):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
and that makes this stuff you should Know the podcast indeed,
not the radio show though, no no, no, this not yet.

(00:48):
It probably will be eventually this one. Yeah, I bet
you they'll speed this one through. Man. You know it's crazy,
is we could say right now, hello w FM you listeners,
so that when this is read purposed into our radio
show on WFMU, it'll blow their minds. What you're speaking
of is we're on WFMU in New York. If you
live in the New York, New Jersey area, not on

(01:10):
one point one, you can hear us Fridays from seven
to eight pm. Now that's not at all what I
was speaking of or Hudson Valley at ninety point one.
You got you got the call signs all over the place,
don't you two stations from tattooed on your your tristep
I might do that. Yeah, they're gonna rush this one through.
They're gonna see I'm not even gonna say the topic,

(01:30):
even though people already know because they clicked on it.
But they're gonna see that and go, who we need
to get this on the air. Um, chuck. You remember
we also did one on cannibalism before. Yeah, and this
is related well in the I relate to two in
the introduction of this article on trunking heads. Right, So, um,
there's you know, those two things really probably are equated

(01:54):
with pre civilized barbarism savagery, um, more than any thing else. Right, agreed,
And this is just as gruesome, we should point out.
That's our little warning. But um, with cannibalism, there's a
lot of dispute over exactly how and when it was practiced.
Like we do know there is evidence that people have
eaten other people in the past, but there we're starting

(02:17):
to think that it was never in any kind of
ritual form where basically it was like we're enduring some
horrible climate change in famine, and so we're going to
figure out how to justify this through like warring with
neighbors and then feeding ourselves with their dead bodies for nutrition.
But the jury still out as to whether or not

(02:37):
cannibalism was ever practiced in any real you know, mass
formed by any culture. That's not the case with head shrinking.
Head shrinking is this weird little um cultural trait. I
guess that um is specific to one culture as far
as we know. And we know that culture because we

(02:57):
could go down to Ecuador right now and meet some
of them. Yeah, the Shore culture. Yeah, I got a
few tribes that did it, but they're they're the main daddies,
So a few. What you're talking about is there's evidence
that other tribes did practice it in pre or para
Colombian contact. Yeah, the and the evidence is like there's
it's shown in tapestries um or that tribes art or something.

(03:19):
There's only one tribe that's documented as having done it,
and that's the Shore and only one that you know
did it really really well. Yeah, they're pretty good at it.
And if you if you're going if you're going to
look up Shore and you run across Javarro shoe are
it's the same people as sho are members of the
Javarro language group. Yeah, and that's apparently that's a kind

(03:39):
of a slam that the word you are. It's like
a corruption of that what shu are those people? Yeah,
it was I think it meant like uncivilized or something
and like like Eskimo, yeah maybe or eaters remember yeah yeah, uh.
And the Nazis may have done it too, may have
named the shore, may have shrunken heads. Oh really Yeah,

(04:00):
they found some at bucking Wald and even presented that
at the Nuremberg trials as like, hey, look what these
guys did. They did all sorts of mess up stuff.
There's a bar of soap in Canada that's supposedly made
from um, the fat of concentration camp victims. I should
say it's alleged, though they never pinpointed and said the

(04:22):
shrunken head came from Jews from bucking Wald. But you know, well,
that's what I'm saying, Like, there's very few incredibly strange,
exotic things that IT culture has done that we can say, yes, definitively,
these people did do this. There's no it hasn't been
blown up by Hollywood or anything like that. This is
legitimate and shrunken heads are are that kind of thing.

(04:46):
And the reason why the shoe Are We're able to
shrink heads and get really good at it over the
years was because even after contact with Europeans like the
Spanish coming into South America, um, the shoe Are we're
one of the very few groups that managed to repel
any kind of Spanish colonialism. Like they lived under Spanish

(05:06):
rule for I think like thirty or thirty three years
and then frankly said, we're tired of being taxed for
our gold, so we're just gonna kill a lot of you. Yeah,
and it worked. Yeah, there was a revolt, right, Yeah,
they killed like twenty five thousand people. And then uh, Spain,
was it just Spain, I guess said we're just gonna

(05:27):
get out of here. Yeah, you guys are good exactly.
And that's really saying something considering the amount of gold
or that the shoe Rs like land sad On, right, Yeah,
and you know that Spaniards loved their gold. So so
the Spaniards were like, Okay, we know you're in there,
and we're gonna leave you alone. And you go do
whatever you want to do, and the Shoe are just
continued to practice some head hunting and head shrinking. Head

(05:48):
hunting practiced all over the world, right yeah, head shrinking
shoe are only as far as the meetings with the Spaniards.
They probably at virtually no no, And then they were like,
it's not that much gold, really, I mean you can
get gold elsewhere exactly. Yeah, well we'll we'll hold the
Inca's hostage. I'm reading again right now. Really, it's a

(06:12):
great book. I was hoping to read that before you
read it again. Sorry, I never picked it up though.
That's the first step. I even went and bought a
book like special for this book. Oh yeah, one of
those little clip on deals, champ So Chuck, why would
anybody shrink ahead? I mean obviously they're just big dumb
savages who like to shrink heads, right, I mean, there

(06:33):
can't be there can't possibly be any explanation behind that.
Not true, Josh, because as you point out, because you
wrote this awesome article, Uh so you know the answer.
But that's just our stick I was acting. Uh, they
are firmly rooted in um and and magic and spiritualism

(06:54):
in war and from an early age, little boys are
taught like retrobue shan, violent retribution is a really good thing,
and it's a part of our culture. Yeah. And if
you don't carry out violent retribution properly, your dead uncle
or your dead grandfather or whatever, your dead ancestors going
to come back and bring, you know, horrible pestilence and

(07:17):
famine on you. You're You're in trouble. So they do
do it for a reason. They do it to uh,
I guess ward off those spirits, right, or to or
to finalize the whole thing. Yeah, well, so it's part
of this larger process. There is part of this bigger belief,
which is if you die, if we're related and you
die of some unseen like disease. Right, let's say you

(07:40):
die of cancer, it's not cancer, it's somebody else in
another household, another shoe, our household bewitched you and using
magic kills you remotely. So since there's no priestly class
amongst shoe are culture, like any anybody can consult with
the spirits under the right circumstances. The right circumstances being

(08:01):
you take hallucinogenic drugs. I would take a hallucinogenic drug,
probably the tema, right, Yeah, it's from a jungle vine evidently, Yes,
a jungle vine that gets you lit. Yeah, And I
just this I want to point out. I love that
from a jungle vine, like hallucinogenic mushrooms. It's like you
name it. Some human has found a way to get

(08:23):
every bit out of every single thing on the earth
if it can mess you up. Don't forget toads to
toads yet, looking toads, we don't recommend that though, by
the way, although I was listening to an old, old,
old episode and you talked about your hallucinogenic toad collection
in college, just like to collect toads because it was funny,
remember that. So, um, I I suspect that you died

(08:45):
because you were bewitched. And now I've taken the tema
and I'm on a vision quest and I'm consulting with
your spirit maybe some other spirits to find out who
killed you. And I'm gonna come down and be like, oh,
it was George down the river, right, So now I
have a blood vendetta against George or hey, thank you,
and um, I'm going to assemble other households in the

(09:07):
area into a confederation to go take your head George,
to make it right. Hey, yeah, because if I don't,
then you my dead relative are are going to haunt
me and bad things are going to happen. And plus
it's just a matter of like that's what our culture
calls for. And you said, they'll even tell the other
tribe sometimes like we're coming for you. Yeah, they'll they'll

(09:29):
learn the other householder plans because this isn't like a
quick thing. It's very well planned, um, and there's a
lot of people involved, and it's very violent and bloody
when it finally does happen. But yeah, they'll say we're
coming after you. You're in big, big trouble, and there
may be retribution, but more likely than not, it's going
to be like, well, you probably shouldn't have killed his uncle,

(09:51):
Oh really, because that was gonna be My question, isn't
this just an endless loop of head shrinking and cut
or cutting the shrinking. Well, it is like it's supported
by death, but it's generally non violent death that they
associate with magic or bewitchment, which really requires this specific
type of retribution. Okay, okay, gotcha, So revenge will take place.

(10:14):
I see. You also pointed out that maybe the whole
household is slaughtered, maybe they'll take the women as wives,
and we're not really sure, like, uh, they used to
take the wives. Uh. Further back is at the deal,
Well that some old account said that these guys are polygamous,
which they are. You are are polygamous. Um, so if

(10:35):
they do carry out one of these raids, they're going
to take the women as their wives. But then a
more recent one from I think the seventies or eighties
or something later in the twentieth century said, no, they
kill everybody they find in this household. They just don't
take little kids heads. But they'll kill a little kids. Yeah,
but they don't take the head. I like that even
they had, hey, a line they would draw. Not much

(10:56):
shrinking to be done. They like to sh really shrink.
I wonder if that has something to do with it.
But a little never mind, I'm not gonna go there.
So check there's a specific way that that all this
is gonna go down, right, very specific, because you are
don't live near one another. They live over a pretty
substantial area of the Amazon basin. Yeah, there's no high
rise full of shoa right, So um, it will take

(11:21):
days to get to this place, and when they finally
get there, they basically alert their target that they're here
by If they have guns, they'll shoot into the air,
they'll shoot at the house or whatever. Basically they're like,
come on out, punk, we're looking for Jorge. Yeah, because
he killed my uncle. I imagine two. I'm making this up,
but it seems like if they sent out Jorge, they

(11:42):
might just be like, Okay, we'll just take Jorge. Um.
That could be the case. Or do they just exact
revenge over the whole family no matter what? You know?
I would imagine that that probably depends on the person, Okay,
on the amount of rage and in mourning and grieving,
you know, in drugs that they're taking, right yeah, so
um there. So, even if they do have guns, you

(12:05):
use a spear if you're going to take someone's head
to shrink it and turn it into we haven't even
said yet. Um what's called it? Tansa or sansa? Yeah? Right,
t s A and t s a yes. Um. You
kill them with the spear by driving the spear through
their neck their throat. That's that, and then you start

(12:26):
this process of shrinking their head by cutting their head off,
and you even do that in a specific way to right, Um,
you cut chuck into a V. Right, you do between
the clavicles above the clavicles in a V shape between
resulting in the point of the V. I guess between
the nipples. Yeah, so there's like a pointed flap hanging
down from the neck like a skin ascot. Right, we

(12:51):
should probably say that this is where it starts to
get graphic in this podcast, because we're going to describe.
You will know how to shrink a head after we're done.
We're always like any seconds late with us. Also, if
you shrink ahead because of this, we no longer consider
you a member of the stuff. You should know nation
you've gone off the deep end. You're a murderer and

(13:12):
you should be punished severely for your crime. Okay, is
that a good disclaimer? Yeah? I hope we didn't have
to say that. But there may be one sick oh
out there. You never know. So, like you said, you
cut it into V shape and then you set a
hair band potentially or a vine like a scrunchy Yeah okay, yeah,
because they often the men often wear their hair long

(13:32):
and they'll have it back in a ponytail, and once
you have stabbed somebody cut their head off in this
methodical way, you need to get out of there because
there may be reinforcements coming. So you loop it through
the throat and then out the mouth tied off, and
you've got a little pocketbook yep, and you tie it
around your waist or throw it over your shoulder, and
you get the heck out of there, exactly because you

(13:54):
know that this is um there your you will be
killed if you're found right, Yeah, I would imagine they
don't like get when you killed neighbors or whatever. But
um also, you need to get out of there because
you you've just probably discarded your weapons. Once you use
um a weapon to kill somebody in this ritual manner,
it's spoiled. Like everything from this first from the beginning

(14:17):
stages of this raid all the way to the end
of it. The stuff that you're using is spoiled and
has to just be left behind. So you're probably running
to get out of there and your your weaponless. And
I would agree with that that tactic anyway. I mean
lightens the load well now and like we say later,
there's like a clay pot and other things you use
like that is spoiled, you know, because it has a

(14:38):
head on it. Yeah, it's just dirty, Like get it
out of there on you don't want to cook in it.
Now we're getting to that though, So um wow, this
is a really methodical one, isn't it? Like step by
step as is shrinking heads. And you know what's funny is,
as I was reading this the whole time, I was like, yeah,
that's how I drink ahead, Like it all makes total
perfect sense. And they've been doing it for centuries, not millennia,

(15:01):
so they really do have it down to step by step. Now.
Obviously it's easier for us to see it as step
by step as outsiders. Sure there's tons of significance with
every single step and you know, a lot of symbology,
but for the most part, it is a very methodical
way of you know, taking and shrinking ahead that this
year are practiced. That's right. So we left off with

(15:22):
getting the heck out of Dodge, and that is when
the process begins, because like you said, they live far
apart from each other, so they can't just wait till
they get back. It might be three days later and
you're gonna have a rotten head. So they started immediately
with an elder tribesman who's probably not doing the fighting,
but he he heads up the process. What's what we
are they called he is called the kuraca. They started

(15:45):
on the waiting word for him. Well, he's probably the
one who he's the head of the household or he's
like them in this confederation of households that was assembled.
He's probably like the most respected or war worn warrior
shrunk ahead or two in another word. Yeah, he knows
what he's doing, and he's probably the one who took
the nattema and had the vision quest and got the answer.

(16:07):
But basically he is the party planner for this whole thing,
and he's the one imbued with the most um spiritual
significance throughout. So he's the one who's going to shrink
the head. But he doesn't. He he didn't necessarily go
on this raid. And if he didn't, then he met
this raiding party at a predesignated camp, one of many
along the way back home from the place where they

(16:29):
just killed the people at home. So he says Jorges
the man, go get him to a checkpoint, a exactly
camp fun and now they're meeting there. Okay, so that's
where we are. It is very methodical, uh, and it's important,
he said, to be attended to these steps because if
you do it wrong, it doesn't count. Right. Well, yeah,
you're not. You're part of this is paying homage to

(16:52):
your dead ancestor or or appeasing your dead ancestor. And
if you if you don't do it right, then your
dead ancestor is not a peas and you're in trouble.
It doesn't count. And part of that is um, like
if the sirocca the karaka right, um. When he starts
this process, he'll say, there's like incantations, and it's not

(17:13):
just him, it's like everybody in the rating party is
very much paying attention to this and being a part
of it. So he'll be like, I'm, you know, pulling
the the throat from the neck, and the other people
say he's pulling the throat from the neck. And it
goes down like that pretty much every step of the way.
There's nothing funny about that. It's the way you said it.
I think we also need to point out that the

(17:34):
warrior guys also have to do certain things like, um,
not eat certain food substained from sex. Um, don't. They
don't hunt alone. And this is this is during the
whole like year long process. Uh no, this is during
the drinking process, all right, because the spirit is held
at bay. Yeah and you said it. I mean this
is a yearlong process. Um. It doesn't take a year

(17:56):
to shrink Ahead, but Ahead holds this man entical significance
for a year. And there's certain prescribed celebrations that have
to take place to fulfill this obligation to the dead ancestor.
It's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, you don't just shrink
heads willy nilly at least and um, chuck, I don't

(18:17):
know if we should say here or not. But the
head has three significances, right Yeah. First, it's physical proof
to the dead ancestor that you're carrying out this revenge
on his or her behalf. Yeah, so a trophy in
a way, but not like Europeans thought of it, right. Um. Secondly,
it has a spiritual significance where you are. It is

(18:40):
the vessel in which the spirit of the person who's
been killed, whose head it was, is trapped, so you're
commanding that person now and then um. Thirdly, it increases
the social status of the of the warrior who who's
wearing it, because you wear that thing for like a
year around your neck exactly. So let's tell him how

(19:48):
it's done. Let's step one. Well, first, if you want
to shrink ahead, Josh, you have to skin ahead because
you can't shrink a skull. Everyone knows that. So you
need to get the Basically, what you want to do
is cre at a halloween mask where there once was
a full head. So you uh cut some flaps that
that around the base of the skull that and I

(20:09):
guess sort of like when you're taking chicken skin off,
you can or if you're like uh spicing chicken under
the skin, sometimes you'll cut a sliver and then you'll
stick your fingers in there. So you're you're loosening little
by little the skin from the skull, cutting the tendons
and cutting everything the muscles that hold it all together. Right,
But you want to cut close to the skull because

(20:31):
one of the aims of this is to keep the
facial characteristics of the person so that he would be
recognizable to his family except smaller. Yeah, So you're you're
working all that through, you're separating it from the skull.
You remove the eyes. You discard the eyes, you discard
the cartilage. You just guard the skull with the brain

(20:52):
inside of it, evidently, and uh, what else do you
cut away the cartilage that holds the nose and the
ears intact. So so, like you said, just like a mask,
it's just what you have is the scalp in the
face and the neck, all that skin still connected, and
the hair right and the holes where the eyes were
and those flap in the mouth, and all that stuff

(21:14):
is there. It's just there's no bone or connective tissue,
or there is connected tissue and fat still, there's just
no bone any longer. So this is the most gruesome
mask that you could ever envision in your life, because
it's real. I wonder if you have ever put it on.
I don't know, Hey, look at me, like, yeah, it
have to be uh, karaco with a small head and
a victim with a really big head. But yeah maybe. So,

(21:36):
although this is so specific, there's no way because that
would mean that the revenge will come up on your head,
all right. So that's that's the skinning. So now we
get to the shrinking. Yes, now you have that rubbery mask,
it's made out of real skin because it's a real person, um,

(21:57):
and do you you have to boil it down first?
It's that you you mentioned a clay pot. They make
a ceramic pot that is just big enough to hold
a head, and they make it just for that person's head.
Because it's never been used before and it will never
be used again. They'll break it and leave it in
the river ahead. At this point, a skin bag, the

(22:21):
face bag, head, skin the skull bag. Okay, this is
going off the rails, so um, the the the Kuraco
dips it three times into this heated water. This heated
over a camp fire. And this is like one of
those situations where he says like, I'm dipping the head,
and then the warriors will be like he's dipping the head,
you know. And then I think on the third time,

(22:43):
he leaves it in there for um, thirty minutes, no
more than thirty minutes. And I've seen several sources site this,
but no more than thirty minutes because after that the
hair starts to come out. But this, the skin bag,
skull bag um basically simmers at a like a light
boil for thirty minutes. Yeah, and remember vinneg or not
olive oil. Sorry, because the olive oil floats at the top. Yeah,

(23:08):
and imagine there was trial and air in this too,
because they probably boil it too long. The hair came out,
and they're like, no, we like it with the hair. Yeah,
so let's let's work on this. Yes, so they figured
out in thirty minutes you can't really go beyond that
or else you lose a lot of hair. So then
after that you take it out, and this thing is
already shrunk by about a quarter now or a third
third um, and you leave it to dry. You dangle

(23:32):
it from like a spear and just let it dry
for a while. Break the pot. Yep, they want to
see a pot spoiled. And then once this is dry,
now you're entering the real curing process. The head is
already noticeably smaller, unsettlingly smaller, but it's gonna get a
lot smaller, like you said, the size of a fist

(23:52):
through this dry heat curing process. Yeah. And like I said,
this all makes total sense. This is how I would
have done it had I been as sura. So we
should probably also say that um, when it was boiled,
pigs were likely inserted to keep the mouth closed, right,
and those pigs may be left in or they may
be removed, but either way, the mouth is going to

(24:14):
be sown shut after it's dried to to begin this
dry hearing process. In between the boiling and the dry hearing,
they're going to start to sow the orifices shut, right, yeah,
Because what you want to end up with is something
that you can turn upside down like a sack and
put hot rocks, um, then hot pebbles, and then eventually

(24:36):
hot sand in there, and a step by step process
to dry it from the inside out. And they roll
it around in there because you don't want it to
sit there and just burn through a cheek. Yeah, it
would burn through a cheek exactly, So they move it around,
they work it around, it dries a little by little
until you get to the sand, and at that point
it I'm sorry. They use a blade to press against

(24:57):
the lips, and then here's the lips. They use hot
rocks in the outside to press it against and rub
it against like an iron, like you're ironing a an Oxford, right,
because you're as a shrinking. If you don't shrink it evenly,
the face is going to get distorted. I mean, think
about this like you're shrinking it down almost like to
you know, like the point of linear perspective, the vanishing point, right,

(25:22):
So imagine that's in the center of this head. You're
you're trying to shrink it all down evenly to that point, right. Um,
And that's got to be incredibly difficult because you're doing
it with hot rocks and hot pebbles and hot sand,
and you boiled the skin, you know, I mean, like,
so to to bring it down, you have to um
smooth it out once in a while by basically using

(25:43):
a hot flat rock as an iron, a clothes iron
to smooth out the wrinkles. Let me ask you how
you get it down so small? Remember, hey, there goes Elvis. Yeah,
there was. You just reminded me of that. Like the
intro of this had five different variations of that scene,

(26:03):
description of that scene, and I couldn't figure out why
I couldn't make it work. And then I finally realized, oh,
this is a lot more serious than the beetles. Don't. Yeah,
the beetle juice reference isn't isn't allowed in this one.
I think it's allowed in the podcast. Sure, well, yeah,
the podcast totally different. That was because that was a
great part. That's how he switches numbers with the tribesman. Yeah,

(26:25):
he's in the waiting room. He has like nine millions
something and then he goes, hey, there goes Elvis and
he switches number four. Good stuff. Do you know the numbers? Huh? Well,
I mean, yeah, that's pretty impressive. Thank you. It's a
great movie. He did much. Oh and um, so that
guy didn't look anything like a shoe Are. And I
think he used like some sort of magical dust to
shrink beetle juice. It was totally off. But um, the

(26:48):
I think another appearance of sho Are in the movies
is um, the Raiders of the Lost Ark with the
gold skull in the beginning re member the guys who
all have the bows and arrows. From what I've seen
of what she Are looked like. Those are Those were
very closely modeled after she Are tribes people. Interesting. Yeah,

(27:10):
all right, okay, so Chuck, where we last left off
poor Jorge's head. Um, he had hot rocks and hot
pebbles and hot sand being rolled around in His eyes
have been so shut. His mouth had been so and
shut is the flap had been so shut. So it
was just a pouch too. I guess somebody pressed a
hot machete to his lips, probably the karaka. Um And

(27:31):
and no, I didn't see anything about the ears being
so and shut, but I surely they have to be.
But I didn't see it anywhere in any of this
in the sources. I think that's implicit. But um, so
now you have this thing, it's getting more and more shrunk,
and um, it's probably about as shrunk as it's going
to get from the hot pebbles or whatever. So you
hang it over a fire. That's the final drying stage, right,

(27:55):
and then you take some camp fire charcoal ash rub
it on the scan, which gives it the distinctive like
darkened look. That and the fact that it's been shrunk
down by dry heat, and um, you have yourself as
Santa at That takes a few days, right, the final
fire drying process. Yeah, okay, all right, done, and that's it.
And um, we should also note that the hair doesn't

(28:18):
shrink at all, so if you you might not think
about it when you're looking at it, But any shrunken
hen you've ever seen as a tiny head with very
long hair, like guy I didn't necessarily have long hair Um,
his head just shrunk a lot. He might have had
a flat top two about the size of a man's fist,
about a quarter of the size of a regular human head. Yeah,
it's gruesome, but I mean, as is our way with

(28:40):
don't judge other cultures. Who am I as Chuck in
Atlanta to judge these people in South America has been
doing this for millennia. It's kind of neat. Yes, is
that wrong to say? Okay, it is. It's interesting, it is,
and we're our interest in this is probably more refined

(29:01):
and less like oh than like our fellow Americans from
like fifty or a hundred years ago. Yeah. Sure, you
know right, you know this was filmed. One guy actually
filmed the rituals. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's documented. Yeah,
one is the only time anyone has ever put a
camera on this. Yes, and they're pretty sure that was it. Yeah.
I haven't seen it. It looks like it. Oh you

(29:23):
saw it? Is it on the YouTube? No way? Edmund Blowski? Yes, wow, alright,
Well I'm gonna go look that up like right now. Yeah,
and I don't know, I don't remember the guy's name.
I wasn't like, oh, yes, of course Edmund, But I
mean he's the only one who had it on there,
so yeah, wasn't Tim Burton. No, he doesn't know what
he's talking about. So all right, where are we here? Uh,

(29:45):
it's own shut. You've got the beginnings of your vengeance,
but this is the beginning of the long, year long
process of fulfilling this. Yes, so basically, you walk into town,
your town, your household, holding this new Santa you just
made along the way aloft with like the Rocky theme

(30:05):
going off in your head. Right, sure, because you are
as bad as they come. That's right. You've just taken
a head of some somebody who killed your relative and
you shrunk it. And now you're gonna wear that around
your neck for the next year. And it's time to party. Yes,
that is the first thing that happens is a big

(30:26):
what you call in quotes ceremonial dance at which there
is an orgy of wild drinking. Yeah. This guy did
a brief ethnography of the shore for the National Geographic Society,
and that's how he described this first um, this first party,
and he thought, why paraphrase it, Let's just throw quotes
around it because it's perfect. I mean that guy saw it,

(30:48):
you know. And they drink chicha, which is maniac beer,
and chichas a ormaniac as a shrub, so they make
this cheecha out of I think maniacs are root so
a shrub I saw route. Maybe it's the root of
that shrub. So maniac, right. They drink this stuff all
the time as it is. So the average adult male

(31:10):
UM drinks three to four gallons eleven to fifteen liters
of maniac beer every day, just as a normal matter
of course. So that's every day drinking. Imagine how much
they drink at a wild orgy of drinking, like an
actual celebration. Imagine kegs of chicha are abundant, right, and
they go for days. The celebration goes for days, and

(31:32):
basically the war the warrior, the raid party, UM have
whatever stances they've made and are showing it off and
using them to recreate like what happened? Um, that's like
to try that the chicha. Like we get beer from like,
you know, this is my beer from Wyoming. I don't

(31:53):
know if we have any Ecuadorian listener, and we appreciate
that beer, but I want to try chicha. I want
to see what that's all about. I bet it's pretty gross.
If we have any Ecuadorian listeners, we'd love to have some.
I don't think it's like bottled commercially. Well, they just
send it to us in a bucket. A bucket. That's
how people used to get beer up until like the forties.

(32:16):
I think, Yeah, you go down to the brewery with
like a bucket and they'd fill it up. Those are
the days, but you'd spill so much I imagine. Yeah,
I think you drink it down a little first where
you hit the road on the way home. You get
home and be like, man, a bucket since you need
to go back. It's billed it along the way into
my mouth. Alright, So more parties? How many parties in total?

(32:40):
Three feasts and parties? Yeah, there's three. Um there's the
first one, which is the numb Pink. Then there is
the um Nappin and Amianu and Ammianu is the last one.
It occurs about a year after this raid and Amiano
means fulfillment as far as I under stand. And at

(33:01):
the end of this they're like, yeah, we don't need
this anymore seriously, and it ends up in a gift
shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or like they they they are
known to like give it to their kids as toys.
It loses all significance whatsoever, like overnight, like after AMU,
it goes from this prized um spiritual, social um, cultural

(33:25):
significant item right to nothing nothing. So the the um
you are, we're known to be fairly surprisingly friendly people.
If they thought you were on the up and up. Yeah,
if they if you had something to trade and you
were there to trade with them, they would say, yeah, sure,

(33:46):
as long as they thought was fair. Remember they revolted
in nine against Spanish colonial rule because they thought they
were being unfairly taxed, and I bet they probably were. Sure. Um,
so if they think you're on the up and up
and you're cool and you're not doing them any harm
or whatever, then you can trade with them. And that
happened big time, yes, And Europeans said, what you got there, buddy? Uh? Whoa,

(34:08):
this is a Santa. It's a shrunken head of somebody
who insulted my um or who killed my uncle, and
then my kids playing with it now. And then they say, well,
I got a boomstick that you might be interested in exactly,
and that began the trade of shrunken heads between the
West and the shoe Are And it started out just

(34:29):
like that, a gun for a shrunken head, one for one.
That seems fair. Yeah, I'm surprised that the Europeans didn't
try to take advantage of that and be like, this
boomstick is pretty pricey. I might I need like five
of those heads. Or maybe they didn't want to push
their life. Yeah, I wouldn't push my luck. One for
one sounds like a good straighter. You give them their
gun and you call them sir the whole time. Well,

(34:50):
and since they did give them guns, that led to
a downward spiral. Uh Like usually when you introduced guns
into a culture of war there, Well, they remember, they
don't use guns to kill. They used the spear to hunt,
just to shoot and be like, check me out, I'm
gonna scare the tar out of you by shooting at

(35:13):
your house, but I'm really going to cut your head
off with a spear. Well, what really started the war
was I think the Europeans came there to do this trading,
and then that, of course brought disease that they weren't
used to seeing. And so that disease killed people, and
that they thought, of course, because they were shoe are
they didn't know it was disease. They thought it was magic.

(35:33):
So they started taking drugs and saying it was Jorge.
More disease equals more death, equals more retribution. That is
more as a huge and very overlooked aspect of how
European encroachment into shoe are culture, uh increased the um
the war among the shoe are um and the other

(35:53):
way it did was just simple supply and demand. The
Europeans wanted more heads than the shoe are head. So
the shoe are We're like, okay, well let's we'll just go,
you know, start warring more frequently. Before it was a
very infrequent thing. And then um, by I think the
turn of the twentieth century, that war was like a
monthly endeavor which had never been seen before amongst you are. Yeah,

(36:16):
you said, between eighteen eighty nine and nineteen eleven, one
area declined in population by because of this war, just
because of war, not even disease, just war. That's a
lot of dead people, it's a lot of shrunken head
and it's because the West demanded it. They wanted this.
They were willing. They were very much in demand because

(36:37):
they saw them as obviously very exotic collectibles and um.
But they did have a if I like this, they
had a shoe. I had a backup plan in case
you were able to go and kill the person who
inflicted pain upon your family. But I couldn't get your head.
They'll allow you to get the head of a sloth instead.

(37:00):
But I imagine that's sort of shameful. Like the guy
with the sloth around his neck might be like, it's
not hor he's a little self conscious. Yeah, at the party,
I think so, like he's partying, but he's like, ah, yeah,
he's off to the side, like drinking and punch. Now,
what if they do, you know, if they don't even
get retribution, they don't what if they get defeated. I

(37:22):
didn't run across anything like that. I just I think
that it was obviously a possibility because they you know,
you're staging arrade. These people know you're coming, and they're
not they're not they're not sending out Jorge, you know,
on their own. Um, they're gonna fight you probably, Um,
So yeah, I I don't know. I think you just
failed and you're dead, right, so you probably don't care

(37:44):
that much about what happened up your uncle because you're
sitting next to him right now and you're getting an
ear full phone. So uh uh. The sloth heads are
significant because they have a feeling that that might be
some of the early forgeries which became commonplace. I think
like about of the ones that they have today are

(38:07):
likely forgeries. Yeah, but but they were authentic because the
you are made, Um, they were sho are tansas. They
just weren't human, right, so um that started. That was quickly.
They quickly ran out of the sloth ones, and then
they were they were counterfeited by people who weren't you are,
So you would have monkey heads, ones made out of

(38:29):
goat or horse skin, um, human heads that were stolen
and shrunken by amateurs um from you know, bodies from
the Morgues and Ecuador who had nothing to do with
the shoe are and the shoe are never had anything
to do with these shrunken heads. And there's a lot
of ways that you can tell an authentic sho are
sansa tansa. I'm gonna say it both ways the whole time. Um,

(38:52):
and uh, one of them is. Um, the lips are
usually so shut, and they were nodded in a certain way,
and the strings were left a dangle. It's called the
shoea not that's a dead giveaway. Um. And there's there's
I ran across this one source. It was basically like
here ten identifying characteristics of a Santa number one head shrunk. Right. Well,

(39:14):
there's one. Um, there are a couple of specimens of
entirely shrunken bodies. But the people didn't go there's one
guy who's like a an Ecuadorian general or something or
military officer. Um, the person who shrunk his whole body
didn't go to the trouble of removing all of the
bones from the hand or feet. Uh so he's just
a little body with like big hands and feet. That's

(39:37):
kind of cool. It is kind of cool, but not authentic. Yeah,
And and I just cooked up an idea though. If
I was I went to get Jorge, but I could
not get Jorge's head, and I was shamed into getting
a monkey instead. I would just tell people that that
was Jorge and that he sort of looked like a monkey. Yeah.

(39:57):
I wonder if that would work. I don't know, No,
if you're a big fat lying shoe, are it would work? Okay?
You know? Yeah, so Chuck we Um, you mentioned that

(40:28):
like eight percent or something of all senses are considered counterfeit.
I'm it was probably. I would think it's even higher
than that. Like big museums, big time museums were collecting
these or received them through donations of like famous adventurers
or collectors widows. Um. Which is a moral issue. It

(40:48):
is these days. It didn't used to be. It was
just like oh, cool shrunken head, right, Oh cool mummy. Right.
But now there is this question of repatriation. Like we
remember in the Total Pole episode we talked about George H. W.
Bush signing the Grave Repatriation Actor Native Americans. So this
is a this is a big issue, and it has
been on since like the eighties or nineties, I would say, um,

(41:10):
And now all of a sudden, all these museums who
were used to making gobs of cash off of displaying
shrunken heads are like, oh, we're kind of on morally
gray ground here, which is really like we're on immoral ground.
So what do we do with this? Well, some people
are returning them. Some museums have returned them, and that

(41:33):
I guess solves that problem other ones, I guess. I
mean they're testing them now a lot. In fact, this
week they got the first DNA successful DNA tests from
a shrunken head. Ah. Who did it turn out to be? Uh?
It was published in this week's issue of or Maybe

(41:54):
It's a monthly quarterly Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, and it
was on display. The head was on display at a
museum and Tel Aviv, and UH, a senior lecturer at
a veterinary school, which I thought was interesting, tested this
thing and authenticated it as real human skin and uh

(42:14):
probably and died in South America, probably of Afro Ecuadorian descent. Wow,
so we knew it was real anyway. But with DNA
now it's like, all right, it's and now we can
tell well and now you can test though at least
these museums can to see if they're forgeries. If they're forgeries,
I guess there's no harm in keeping them no on display,

(42:36):
They're probably not gonna draw the visitors in like a
real stance it would, right, But UM, the the Smithsonian's
um oh, which one was at the National Museum of
the American Indian led the way in repatriating stances to
the shore in UH. I think, and then other museums

(42:58):
are thinking of doing it, think very publicly and very
hard about it. Like the Pitt Rivers Museum in England
has a pretty substantial collection. There was a lot of
like basically grave robbing and looting of cultures in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries that were funded by museums. They
now have these collections that everybody was cool with that

(43:20):
all of a sudden the public is not so cool with.
So maybe we should give that stuff back because these
are human remains, and Santa's in particular are called um
quasi objects because there because of the transformation they go through,
they're not just human remains. They're also cultural artifacts. But
at the end of the day, they're human remains. And

(43:41):
really they should probably go back to what's now the
Shore Federation, which was established in the nineteen fifties and
supposedly since then there hasn't been a Santa. But that
that film from nineteen sixty one kind of undermines that idea. Yeah,
and didn't you point out to that um the uh
during the boom in in the trade of the shrunken
heads that people would rob Ecuadorian morgues of their heads

(44:05):
to to make these. So that's certainly hinky, yeah, to
say the least. Yeah, So I guess the moral of
this entire episode is if you have a shrunken head,
you should probably give it back. That's right. And didn't
the Christians stop all this? Aren't they to blame or
to be credited with? Yea, Christian missionaries are the ones
who kind of brought the shoe are more into Ecuadorian

(44:27):
society and um got their their culture into this Shoe
r Federation and they stopped worrying with within themselves too. Yes,
but there are still rumors and will end it on
this one as recently as nine six. So like everybody's like,
if you're a shoe are supposedly you don't shrink heads anymore,

(44:48):
but you know exactly how to do it. Under the
right circumstances, you would do it right, But everything's just
been so cool for so long you don't have to
do it. But supposedly in the nineteen nineties six uh
Senapa war, I believe is what it was between Peru
and Ecuador. Ecuadorian soldiers who were sho are modern soldiers. Yes,

(45:10):
so there was a rumor that they were making santsa
out of the heads of Peruvian soldiers that they killed
during this war. Yeah. I wonder if they followed the
whole process, the year long deal with the celebrations, or
if it was more modernized, like I'm just gonna do
this for the old old school guys. I don't know,
keep the the culture alive. Well, the idea that it

(45:32):
happened during the Senate War has been largely pooh pooed.
But I don't know if they did. I don't know
how they did it, but I'll bet that all of
the other people in their platoon were really scared of them,
probably so. So that's it for headshrinking. Literally, there's nothing
more to say about. No, I can't think of anything.
I even looked. If you want to see a bunch

(45:54):
of pictures of shrunken heads and stuff like that, you
can look at my article on how stuff works dot
com by typing in shrunken heads in the handy search
bar how stuff works dot Com. That's how I found it,
and that brings up not listener mail as I understand it.
Right now, Josh, you know what it's time for say

(46:15):
it Edge. That's right, Josh. This is the point that
we do every few months where we thank fans for
sending tokens of their appreciation in and many of them
are trying to get a small plug of their own,

(46:36):
which we don't mind doing as long as it's on
the up and up. And so here we go. We'll
just tag team this. Listen up for your name, and
if we forgot you, please remind us and you will
be on the next edition. Uh. Susannah from Archie Comics
knows that I was an Archie comic fan from the
show and that you made fun of me for that,
and so she sent us a load of stuff Archie

(47:00):
boxer shorts and comics and depends I showed it to
you and you didn't want it. Chuck. You also got
both of the gift cards from George from Guitar Center
in Austin, Texas. George, I appreciate that, yeah, man, but
I knew that Chuck would put it too a lot
better use than I would, so he got that one.
You could have got like a like a guitar sent

(47:21):
her T shirt. Alright, thank you, George. I used them
both already. Vanessa, you sent us germ inspired plushies and
they're these little zippered pouches that look like germs. Yeah,
two of my nieces are crazy those. Yeah I should, uh,
I should donate those to a small child. Uh. Germ
usa dot com is where you can find those, and
she donates of sales to St. Jude's Children's Hospital. So

(47:45):
that is very much worthy. And if you are red
gifting them to really kind of complete the whole thing,
cough into it first and then zip it up real
quick and then give it to the little plush germs.
That's good. Look in the show. Sure, culture, I think sure? Uh,
Liz it a bit sweets dot Com send us some
more chocolate switch, Thank you, Liz. But she owed it

(48:05):
to us after the Molecular Gastronomy podcast. It was in return. Remember, yeah,
are we one up on her now or she even
were even now? Okay, but we got a good deal
going with her, so let's just keep this up. So
thanks a little bit sweets dot com. That is l
I D D A B I T sweets dot com.
And it's so good. That's true, Chuck. I mean we're

(48:25):
not just plugging it. I mean every time we get
a package from her. I just delighted. Yes in fat
her farmer, I'll send us unicorn tiers from unicorn tiers
dot org. And uh my unicorn tiers were tears of joy.
Apparently there are different kinds of unicorn tiers. Really, yes,
mine were tears of joy tears. Jody sent us in
Geo coins from her gcation experience. It was very nice.

(48:48):
Oh yeah, that's right, no plugg there, just a kind deed.
Matt Lively sent us a sketch book Grandma's Big Breakfast
and other drawings. Is that the one with the everybody
made a little squiggle and he draw from it? I believe,
So okay, thanks Matt, it's very neat. We got something
from Jenna Dalmas and Jenna was on the co ed
trip to Guatemala with Jerry. Is it Gina? It is

(49:11):
Jenna spell Gina, and Jerry told me how to pronounce it,
and she sent a CD. She's a musician, and she
sent us some c D s and T shirts and
you can support her at Jenna Dalmas dot com. But
that is g I n A D A l m
A s dot com. And I haven't listened to c
D yet because I just got it, but I'm gonna

(49:31):
check it out. Looks like some sort of all country
type of thing, which I did. So do you remember
those competing gross stories, the paramedic and the ear nurse?
Who are I think married? Um? And we did. We
judged which story was grosser, fish in the butt yes
or intestines pushed back in and we voted intestines. Well,
Matt and Anna, whose stories those worse than us? Thank

(49:54):
you beers, so thank you for the beers. Johnny Spanish,
I doubt if that's his real name. He sent Uh,
he does Discover Spanish. There's a podcast actually called Discover
Spanish and it teaches you Spanish. And he sent us
a CD set from Language Treks And um, I haven't
listened to it yet, but if long wanted to learn

(50:15):
Spanish and I didn't want to throw down for it's
Rosetta Stone. Yeah, so I'm gonna I'm gonna try. Why
was it pricey? Yeah? So I'm gonna got it now
for free from Johnny Spanish. Yes, he's gonna teach you
to say stuff that you're not supposed to be saying.
Probably so. Carrie and Ryan sent us a lovely photo
of woods on fire. She teaches back country landscape photography

(50:40):
at a community calls in DuPont, Washington, and you can
go check out her stuff at photos by carry dot
com photos by k E R R I E dot com.
All one word, Josh, we got some beef jerky. I know,
this was awesome. It was so good. I almost finished
it all on the way home. And it was a slab.

(51:00):
Yeah it was. It was like my bucket of beer,
but it was beef jerkey. It was Bud's beef jerkey
from northern California. And Mike Geotas or Guiotas sent us
that And did he send us anything else? I don't,
I don't. I think it was just. I mean that's plenty,
but at the first some reason I thought that was
beer that went with it or just and Mike, if
you want to keep that coming, if you can stagger

(51:22):
him so I get a new one every day, that
would help me a lot. What's next, Uh, let's see.
Allison and Fraser from Victoria, British Columbia sent us the
s Y S K Army T shirt. This was a
an entrant into our contest that we had some time back, which,
by the way, I think we should have another teacher contest.
What do you think I was thinking that just the

(51:43):
other day. Actually, all right, and there's um didn't win,
but it's awesome and we've got our versions of it.
We can wear them are out now. Yeah they're Canadian.
It might have won, but they were not allowed because
of of silly rules. Yes they couldn't. They couldn't even enter.
But they're in the image gallery and they made the
shirt anyway inside to us. So thank you very much,

(52:03):
you guys. And finally I want to give a personal
thanks to Dr Gabriel Bird, dentist of Norman, Oklahoma, because,
as you know, Josh, I am potentially looking at braces
and jaw surgery for my messed up bite that is
weakening my teeth. You're like Lisa Simpson projected like ten
years out. Awful, man, so awful. And I posted on

(52:25):
Facebook one day about people that had experience with this,
and Doc Bird uh said, Hey, dude, I'm a dentist
in Oklahoma. Call me. So I did, and we spent
like an hour on the phone and he gave me
all sorts of like awesome tips and advice on what
to look for in my appointment, and uh, we're Facebook
buddies now and it was very yeah, very kind of him.
So if you're in the Norman, Oklahoma area, highly recommend

(52:48):
Dr Gabriel Bird and he's quite a dream boat. And
then finally we have about ten more shoutouts. Um, We've
got a juma and other stories from Tyler Davis. He
sent us a self published book which is pretty awesome.
Got a nice origami crane from Jordan's Hatswell in South Australia.
We got a letter from Courtney B who is an
archaeologist in Alama Gordo, New Mexico. Thank you. We got

(53:12):
a very nice letter from Sam W and Sam, tell
your dad thank you for introducing you to the podcast
from us please. We got a valentine from Vlada. I
don't know if we ever thank Flada for that one.
I found it in some postcards. We got a postcard
from Grenada from Emily. Postcard from Hell Cayman Islands from
famous Tracy who we know very well. Postcard from Gisborne,

(53:35):
New Zealand from Susan p. Postcard of Benjamin Smythe on
the UC Berkeley campus. Cool. Have you heard of this guy?
He's just holding a sign that says you're perfect. It's nice.
Positive dude, he's wrong, but that's nice. Uh, And that
that came from Magnolia. Thanks Magnolia got a postcard from
Michelle w in Leiden, Holland, and then a postcard of

(53:56):
a Garotte execution in the Philippines at the turn of
the century from Cecile, who's a doctor in Manila. It's
like a guy wearing a bag over his head and
there's like a machine that looks kind of like a press,
but it's vertical. No, it's horizontal rather than vertical, and

(54:16):
he's being executed. Some guys are standing around, but the
executed is just sitting there holding his hat like I'm
just gonna hang onto my hat while they kill me.
Did you do you still have that? Yeah? I don't
think I saw that. I want to see that. Yeah,
it's pretty serious. But thank you everybody for all that stuff,
And thank you to everybody who has ever sent anything
that we forgot. If we did, it was a total oversight.

(54:37):
It has nothing to do with how we feel about
what you sent us. Send us an email and say, jerks,
I sent you this. How could you not thank me?
I love you anyway? Signed you Okay, You can send
that email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.

(55:01):
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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