Book Description

Headhunters of the Amazon (1921) which tells an extraordinary story of exploration and adventure of Fritz Graff. As a practice, headhunting has been the subject of intense discussion within the anthropological community as to its possible social roles, functions, and motivations. Headhunting is the practice of taking and preserving a person's head after killing the person. Headhunting was practised in historic times in parts of Oceania, South and Southeast Asia, West and Central Africa, and Mesoamerica, as well as among certain tribes of the Celts, the West Germanic tribes, the Vikings and Scythians of ancient Europe. It occurred in Europe until the 19th century in Montenegro, Croatia, and western parts of Herzegovina and to the end of the Middle Ages in Ireland and the Anglo-Scottish border regions. Several tribes of the Jivaroan group including the Shuar in Eastern Ecuador and Northern Peru, along the rivers Chinchipe, Bobonaza, Morona, Upano, and Pastaza, main tributaries of the Amazon, practised headhunting for trophies that were then shrunk, know locally as Tzan-Tzas which they believed housed the soul of the person killed. The Shuar today still produce replicas using the original precess from the skinheads of monkeys and sloths in order to sell them to tourists. It is believed that there are still splinter groups in the local tribes that continue with these practises of their forefathers whenever there is a tribal feud over territory or as revenge for a crime of pasion. Themes that arise in anthropological writings about headhunting include mortification of the rival, ritual violence, cosmological balance, the display of manhood, cannibalism, prestige, and as a means of securing the services of the victim as a slave in the afterlife.