Уменьшенные головы: ритуалы и история создания цанца

Specially prepared human head

A shrunken head is a severed and specially prepared human head often decreased to many times smaller than typical size that is used for trophy, ritual, trade, or other purposes. Headhunting is believed to have occurred in many regions of the world since time immemorial, but the practice of headshrinking per se has only been documented in the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest. Jivaroan peoples, which includes the Shuar, Achuar, Huambisa and Aguaruna tribes from Ecuador and Peru, are known to keep shrunken human heads. Shuar people call a shrunken head a tsantsa, also transliterated tzantza. Many tribe leaders would display their heads to scare enemies. Shrunken heads are known for their mandibular prognathism, facial distortion, and shrinkage of the lateral sides of the forehead; these are artifacts of the shrinking process. Among the Shuar and Achuar, the reduction of the heads was followed by a series of feasts centered on important rituals.

The process of creating a shrunken head begins with removing the skull from the neck. An incision is made on the back of the ear and all the skin and flesh is removed from the cranium. Red seeds are placed underneath the nostrils and the lips are sewn shut. The mouth is held together with three palm pins. Fat from the flesh of the head is removed. Then a wooden ball is placed under the flesh to keep the form. The flesh is then boiled in water that has been saturated with a number of herbs containing tannins. The head is then dried with hot rocks and sand while molding it to retain its human features. The skin is then rubbed with charcoal ash. Decorative beads may be added to the head. In the head shrinking tradition, it is believed that coating the skin in ash keeps the muisak, or avenging soul, from seeping out.

When Westerners created an economic incentive for shrunken heads there was a sharp increase in the rate of killings in an effort to supply tourists and collectors of ethnographic items. The terms 'headhunting' and 'headhunting parties' come from this practice. Guns were usually what the Shuar acquired in exchange for their shrunken heads, the rate being one gun per head. But weapons were not the only items exchanged. Around 1910, shrunken heads were being sold by a curio shop in Lima for one Peruvian gold pound, equal in value to a British gold sovereign. In 1919, the price in Panama's curio shop for shrunken heads had risen to £5. In 2020, Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum removed its collection of shrunken heads after an ethical review begun in 2017, as part of an effort to decolonize its collections and avoid stereotyping.

In the novel Moby Dick, the character Queequeg sells shrunken heads and gives his last as a gift to the narrator, Ishmael, who subsequently sells it himself. In 1955, Disneyland opened its Jungle Cruise ride. Until recently, the attraction featured a trader selling shrunken heads (three of his for one of yours). In 1975, Whiting (a Milton Bradley company) released Vincent Price's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture Kit. In the 1946 movie The Devil's Mask, a crashed plane that had a shrunken head aboard is the only clue to a mystery involving a secret code. The 1988 movie Beetlejuice featured a ghost of a hunter whose head had been shrunken. At the end of the movie, the title character suffers the same fate. One of the North American television commercials for the 1990 video game Dr. Mario featured head shrinking, as well as a cover of the song Witch Doctor with slightly different lyrics. In the 2004 film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Lenny Henry voices Dre Head, a Jamaican accented shrunken head on the magical Knight Bus. The same film features three more shrunken heads, voiced by Brian Bowles and Peter Serafinowicz, inside the wizard pub The Three Broomsticks. Both Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) feature shrunken heads.