Autochrome, Rare, Shrunken Head, ' Tsantsa '. C. 1935.
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:31147909 |
Photographer unidentified. Shrunken Head. c.1935.
Autochrome of shrunken head, taken in a museum by Dr P?
Dimensions: 9 by 6.5 cm.
On verso a small crack. Refer to: Fleurs de Peau Skin Flowers. The photographic work of a dermatologist in Lyons in the Thirties presented by Gérard Lévy and Serge Bramly, Editions Kehayoff, Munich, 1993
Head-shrinking has been the proper domain not of Africa but rather of the denizens of South America. Specifically, i...n the post-Columbian period, it has been most famously the practice of a tribe of indigenous people commonly called the Jivaro or Jivaro-Shuar.
The evidence suggests that the Jivaro-Shuar are merely the last group to retain a custom widespread in northwestern South America. In both ceramic and textile art of the pre-Columbian residents of Peru, the motif of trophy heads smaller than normal life-size heads commonly recurs; the motif is seen even in surviving carvings in stone and shell. Moreover, although not true shrunken heads, trophy heads found in late pre-Columbian and even post-Columbian graves of the region demonstrate techniques of display very similar to those used by the Jivaro-Shuar, at least some of which are best understood in the context of head-shrinking. Regardless, the Jivaro-Shuar and their practices provide an illustrative counterexample to popular myth regarding the culture and science of the shrinking of human heads.
In pre-Columbian times the art of shrinking heads was widespread in the Andean area. Early chronicles have given us excellent descriptions of shrunken heads and the methods of their preparation among the Indians of the Ecuadorian Coast.To understand the motives behind the preparation of tsantsa it is necessary to realize that the tsantsa itself possesses tsarutama or magical power. Immediately following the battle the head was taken as a trophy, which indicated that the maker had properly fulfilled the obligation to his lineage in taking blood revenge.
