Just wanted to point out that, ironically, I believe the largest collection of shrunken heads may be in the possession of the kitchy “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not” Museums. Ripley collected many of the heads in his travels and now, unlike much of his collection, they are rare curios of a past culture.
Welcome to the SDMB, and thank you for posting your comment.
Please include a link to Cecil’s column if it’s on the straight dope web site.
To include a link, it can be as simple as including the web page location in your post (make sure there is a space before and after the text of the URL).
Cecil’s column can be found on-line at this link:
How are shrunken heads made? (31-Jul-1998)
moderator, «Comments on Cecil’s Columns»
In the column, (do I need to link it again, or does it just need to be linked once per thread?) our esteemed Unca wrote:
“The practical goal of these raids was wives and booty”
I must protest this obvious redundancy.
–Tim Mitchell
Welcome, Mitchell! One link per thread is plenty; we just like folks reading the thread to be able to find the column easily, and nobody reads only one post in a thread.
Mitchell, hardly a redundancy! Or are you saying that once one has interacted with a woman for the purposes of “booty”, one is obligated to make her one’s wife? I don’t think you will find many red-blooded he-men to agree with you.
A major purpose of the link Mitchell is so that when these threads are preserved and archived for posterity for your grandchildrens’ benefit, they will be able to see how Cecil’s acolytes interpreted his wisdom as it fell from his pen. On that score, you’re butchered already. You’ll do for now though.
In “How are shrunken heads made?”
( http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980731.html ),
Cecil says:
"The heads, called tsantsa, were to the Jivaro
what scalps were to some North American tribes--
trophies of battle."
I have read that scalping was introduced to the Indians
by white settlers - that there was a bounty on the scalps
of Indians, and that the Indians took up scalping white
settlers in retaliation.
Is there any truth to this?
I have to cite Richard Shenkman’s Legends Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History on this – scalping has associated language and ceremonies that indicate it was a native practice, not introduced. Europeans originally said they loathed the practice – but then they started paying bounties on collected scalps. And it’s not as if there’s anything foreign to the basic idea. Look up in the Bible how David collected the foreskins of the Philistines.
(I realize that some on this board don’t think highly of Shenkman, but I’ll defend him. His book is like a historian’s version of Jeral D. Walker’s A Flying Circus of Physics – most useful as a compendium of references. Regardless of what you think of Shenkman’s qualifications, in other words, he’s basically a clearinghouse for information, and if have issues you should address them to the authors of the original articles that Shenkman cites and gives a synopsis of.)
Dude still uses a pen?
No wonder he seems testy sometimes.
–Tim Mitchell
Just as a sidenote I found this one ebay today ( http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1000303362 ) The description of the item seems to have all the details right at least
. . . except for being made of goat skin, you mean?