TSANTSA or Shrunken Head : The Mystery of Rainforest- The Amazon

A few days back, in this idle pandemic homestay, I was reading one of the bestsellers of James Rollins titled as AMAZONIA where I, for the first time, came to learn about the term "Tsantsa or Tzantza". In a simpler sense, Tsantsa refers to wizened human cranium that has been cut off from the body! 

Being addicted to adventures and horrors, I've always been in search for the unknown as well as weird facts happening around us. So, naturally, interest grew inside me to learn the fact or practice - TSANTSA. 

In his book Amazonia, Rollins presented a female character with the name Sue who was from the Shuar community of the rainforest of Ecuador. And she was presented as the wife or more specifically the mistress of the negative character Lui Favri- a biologist who was in a mission to exact the curitive medicine of an unknown pandemic from the other team of scientists. Sue had a notorious reputation for hunting the heads of her foes and turn them into Tsantsas as a souvenir, which was a natural instinct of the community she came from. 

Reading all this thrills, I searched it on Google immediately and found some jaw dropping info. Let's start from the beginning with more simplified explanation- 

Suar and Asuar are tribes living in the most dense parts of Amazon rainforest located in Ecuador and Peru. They are famous for their brutal "Head Hunting" practices which has made them a center of fear for both the explorers and the other tribes. 

(A Suar Family)

So why and how they hunt human heads?

They involve in war with another group of the same community or a different community where they hunt the heads of the defeated male opposition and turn them into a shrunken one! But not only the other tribes, they also target the explorers or the tourists. The process of making Tsantsa is a bit complex. They peel off the skin along with hair and beard from the cranium and soak that into a solution to boil for a defined period of time. Then heated sand is poured into the boiled skin until it gets the shape of a big orange. The eyes and mouth of the head are also sewed together as the Suars think this would prevent the soul of the death from escaping. The each step of the whole process is repeated for several times. 

This tribal people consider these Tsantsas as a sign of power and they also think that they can gain the power of the hunted male through his shrunken head. 

Sadly, now-a-days the Tsantsas has attracted the interest of smugglers as it has a vast demand in antique business. So the government of Ecuador and Peru  are trying to regulate this gruesome practice and also the advancement of civilization deep into the rainforest are modifying the monstrous notions of the head hunter tribes.