# Shrunken head manufacture **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [May 21, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shrunken-head-manufacture/66107 "2001-05-21T17:43:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Threadkiller](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@Threadkiller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Threadkiller)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2001, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shrunken-head-manufacture/66107/1 "2001-05-21T17:43:51Z")
I meant to jump on this earlier but it took me awhile to pull out the resource. In [a different thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=68887) the SDMB wanders a little off topic. But I would like to address the original column question: [How are shrunken heads made?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980731.html) Cecil Writes: > [@](#): > > They prepared the heads by slicing down the back from crown to neck, then peeling off the skin “just as a stocking is removed from a foot.” The skin was cooked in special pots, after which the incision and other openings were sewn up or plugged. A long process of taxidermy followed in which the head was tanned and stuffed, resulting in a trophy that faithfully reproduced the appearance of the original head, only one-third the size. In Thor Heyerdahl’s [Kon-Tiki](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671726528/o/qid=990465934/sr=2-1/102-3908654-9987325) the following is found on the method of head shrinking: pp.44-45 (in my paperback) Translated into English by F.H. Lyon > [@](#): > > […]the jungle Indians cut off the heads of their enemies among other nomad tribes. They smash up and remove the skull itself and fill the empty skin of the head with hot sand, so that the whole head shrinks till it’s hardly bigger than a cat’s head, without losing its shape or its features. […] The two methods seem quite far apart. Heyerdahl’s account is given second (or third) hand and seems to have a problem or two. Specifically, how do you smash a skull, remove it and still have a face retain its features? Cecil’s missive follows the lines of taxidermy (skinning tanning etc.). The problem I can see (not being a taxidermist certainly doesn’t help) with this account is the head size. Taxidermy tends to keep things the same size. Where does the shrinking to “one-third the size” come from? Which account is the more accurate Cecil’s or Heyerdahl’s (:eek: heaven forbid)? Or are both processes acceptable methods to the same (gristly) end? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2001, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shrunken-head-manufacture/66107/2 "2001-05-21T23:12:49Z")
They’re not mutually exclusive descriptions, but rather two incomplete descriptions emphasizing different parts, with perhaps an error or two in each. Pulling a DDG, I did a web search on “shrunken heads”. I found [http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/shrunken.htm](http://freeweb.pdq.net/headstrong/shrunken.htm) , which describes how to make a shrunken head, and then how to make a fake shrunken head using an apple. [http://www.ci.riverside.ca.us/museum/exhibit/jivaro1.html](http://www.ci.riverside.ca.us/museum/exhibit/jivaro1.html) this site also discusses head shrinking and the Jivaro Indians. But the best is this site: [http://www.head-hunter.com/account.html](http://www.head-hunter.com/account.html) . It has an actual first hand account of the Jivaro Indians performing a ritual head shrinking after a raid on a neighboring village. It is the source material for the anthropology on the whole phenomenon. F.W. Up De Graff. \Head hunters of the Amazon:Seven Years of Exploration and Adventure\, New York: Garden City 1925 p. 273-283 You can see from the description given there that Cecil simplified the description by calling “stuffing with hot rocks, then repeating with hot sand over the course of 48 hrs” into “a long process of taxidermy”. The only thing wrong with Heyerdahl’s description is breaking up the skull, and omitting the pots of water first used to heat the skin. ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2001, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shrunken-head-manufacture/66107/3 "2001-05-22T12:27:21Z")
Am I that famous? 😃