Shrunken Heads

The Shuar people of Ecuador and Peru first came to worldwide attention in the 1800s, after Westerners discovered that the group practiced head shrinking. The custom stems from the belief that severing an enemy’s head and shrinking it harnesses the person’s spirit and compels it to serve the shrinker. Though cultural restrictions limited the manufacture of shrunken heads, Western demand for the macabre artifacts prompted the Shuar to produce them in greater quantities. How does one shrink a head? Discuss

Source: The Free Dictionary

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