page_title: Shuar
section_title: Tsantsa, the shrunken heads
hierarchical_section_title: Shuar / Tsantsa, the shrunken heads
caption_attribution_description: English: A shrunken human head by Jíbaro indigenous people from Peru. Español: Una cabeza humana reducida de los indígenas Jíbaro del Perú. Français&#160;: Une tête réduite des Jivaros du Perou.
context_page_description: The Shuar are an indigenous people of Ecuador and Peru. They are members of the Jivaroan peoples, who are Amazonian tribes living at the headwaters of the Marañón River.
context_section_description: In the 19th century muraiya Shuar became famous among Europeans and Euro-Americans for their elaborate process of shrinking the heads of slain Achuar. Although non-Shuar characterized these shrunken heads (tsantsa) as trophies of warfare, Shuar insisted that they were not interested in the heads themselves and did not value them as trophies. Instead, they sought the muisak, or soul of the victim, which was contained in and by the shrunken head. Shuar men believed that control of the muisak would enable them to control their wives' and daughters' labor.
  Since women cultivated manioc and made chicha (manioc beer), which together provided the bulk of calories and carbohydrates in the Shuar diet, women's labor was crucial to Shuar biological and social life. In the late 19th century and early 20th century Europeans and Euro-Americans began trading manufactured goods, including shotguns, asking in return for shrunken heads. The result was an increase in local warfare, including head hunting, that has contributed to the perception of the Shuar as violent. In 1961 Edmundo Bielawski made the only footage showing what appears to be their head-shrinking process.
caption: A shrunken head exhibited at the Museum of the Americas in Madrid.
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