1. Decapitate your enemy (preferably while he is still alive), but be sure to cut the head off below the neck, taking also a section of the skin from the chest and back.
2. On the back of the head, make a slit starting from the neck going nearly to the top. Once the skin has been successfully pulled away from the skull without damaging the face, toss the skull into the river. Sew the eyes shut with jungle fiber and pierce the lips with wooden pegs.
3. Place the head into a boiling pot and simmer for around two hours. (Any longer and the hair will fall out!) Once the head is done, the skin will look dark and rubbery and will have shrunken down to about 1/3 its original size. Turn the skin inside-out and use a good, sharp knife to remove any hunks of extra flesh. Once you have it clean, return the skin to its original shape.
4. Sew the slit on the back of the neck shut so that the head looks much like an old rubber mask. Drop hot stones into the neck opening of the head and rotate them around continuously. This shrinks and dries the inside without any scorching.
5. When the head has become too small for hot stones, pour in hot sand, which will reach smaller places that the stones couldn't. Repeat this over and over until the head is as small as its going to get. Then rub more hot stones on the outside of the face to burnish any wrinkled areas and to make the features more prominent.
6. Burn off any extra facial hair if desired and hang the head over a smoky fire in order to allow it to harden to a deep black sheen. The final touch is to use a heated machete placed on the lips in order to dry them enough to take the wooden pegs out and replace them with long jungle string.
This entire process takes about a week.
If you try it, please post pics. ;)
For more on head-hunting and shrinking, visit
Head Hunting: The History of the Shuar
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