They just get smaller and smaller...

January 15, 2003 1:55 AM

The Jivaro are primarily known for their shrunken heads, but when one woman told another about a childhood memory, the search for the shrunken men began. (from the Morbid Fact Du Jour)
posted by Katemonkey (21 comments total)

Oh. Sweet. Freakin'. Jebus.

I'm already dreading tonight's nightmares.
posted by alumshubby at 4:42 AM on January 15, 2003

I haven't clicked the links yet, but after reading alumshubby's comments I'm afraid to do it.

Alright I'm going in. If I'm not back in an hour, then.... then... you'll just have to go on without me.
posted by PenDevil at 5:06 AM on January 15, 2003

Oh, it's just a picture of little dudes... It's like something out of Ripley's Believe It Or Not... nothing grotesque, in my opinion.
posted by techgnollogic at 5:10 AM on January 15, 2003

I remember seeing these years ago when I was a frequent visitor to the Museum of the American Indian in upper manhattan. What was a bit more gruesome was down in the Plains Indian warfare exhibit. Scalps. Lots of them. Including blonde and African-American hair.

I think gruesome museum exhibits are a lot less scary than reality TV shows on MTV.
posted by zaelic at 5:32 AM on January 15, 2003

I wish there was more about how they actually did it. The possibility of being alive whilst they proceed seems especially hideous.

I don't know if morbid fact du jour is known by most here, but the link regarding the twin arm swap is truly worth a look. I really don't understand why anyone would make that effort. And why does only one twin get extra bits?
Poor Dave, minus an arm and a finger!
posted by pots at 5:38 AM on January 15, 2003

The twin arm swap is a hoax (the April 1 date is a big clue). I'm pretty sure it's been discussed here before, but I can't find it right now. Methinks each time it was posted, Matt deleted it.
posted by yhbc at 5:48 AM on January 15, 2003

Thanks for the link to morbid fact du jour.

I find the shrunken men story fascinating, especially as it highlights the shifting attitudes as to what is "acceptable".

But those twins, even if it is a hoax .... eeeeeeeew.
posted by arha at 5:54 AM on January 15, 2003

The possibility of being alive whilst they proceed seems especially hideous.

The "shrunken" part is really only the skin. Since you need a nice specimen to get a nice result, I doubt that skinning someone alive would be the best way to maintain the material in one piece.
posted by magullo at 6:27 AM on January 15, 2003

Great link! I wonder how many will read the piece all the way to the end. The twist at the end nearly made me spit my coffee all over the monitor.


Also nice to know there's at least one person in NYC who's sizing up people's head to shrink and is not technically insane.
posted by photoslob at 7:16 AM on January 15, 2003

I for one would love to be a museum piece after I die! I think its sad that "respect for dignity" has caused the demise of potentially valuable artifacts such as these! I was glad to see that the Museo de las Americas in Madrid still had several shrunken heads as well as Peruvian mummies on full display. I guess we should respect the dignity of the stuffed bear in the natural history museum and bury him too?
posted by Pollomacho at 8:07 AM on January 15, 2003

I think its sad that "respect for dignity" has caused the demise of potentially valuable artifacts such as these!

Indeed. Such twaddle people espouse.
posted by rushmc at 9:04 AM on January 15, 2003

Isn't there some sort of line between disrespect and desecration and preservation and genuine scientific research? I don't think it would be proper to display mummies in a carnival side show or to fuel locomotives (as they used to be used for) but hiding them in a back room of some archives to rot or actually burying them doesn't help us preserve a unique and ancient culture. In some cases artifacts like these are our last examples of a lost culture and should be displayed so as many people can carry the memory as possible. We need the memories of sad, gruesome and macabre things as much as the pretty things. We need the scalps, the ovens from the crematoria and the shrunken heads to be preserved to preserve the memory of what horror humans are capable of, and thus be less inclined to repeat those horrors.
posted by Pollomacho at 9:23 AM on January 15, 2003

PenDevil, sorry if I freaked you out unnecessarily with what you may see as an overreaction. But in childhood...

I saw an episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea where marionettes came surreptitiously to life, trying to take over the USS Seaview...

and an episode of The Twilight Zone about a ventriloquist and his dummy...

and the novel and movie Magic...

and that famous Trilogy of Terror sequence with Karen Black (remember her?) in a battle to the death with a fetish doll come to life...

I've had a total horror toward little homunculi that seem a little too lifelike. Not that I needed therapy or anything, but that kind of thing tends to creep me right out.
posted by alumshubby at 10:13 AM on January 15, 2003

Mueso de las Momias in Guanajuato, Mexico, is a cool place to see mummies. They had to put the mummies behind glass because people would break off body parts (fingers, toes and worse) and keep them.

Also, for those interested, these heads are made by removing the brain, boiling the head until the skin is plyable, and peeling it off the skull. They then bury the head in the ground with hot rocks which makes the head shrink. I swear, I had a wacked out college professor who studied these people.
posted by Tunnel Hair at 10:30 AM on January 15, 2003

Isn't there some sort of line between disrespect and desecration and preservation and genuine scientific research?

Sure. Showing disrespect for a corpse would include such acts as painting a clown face on it or pissing on it, with the intent to disrespect it. "Desecration" is an empty and ultimately meaningless concept (unless you simply want to use it to indicate an extreme form of disrespect). People have an unfortunate tendency to anthropomorphize human corpses and other remains. Anything that has anthropological or historic value should be preserved, IMO. All this well-meaning but misguided effort to return remains to its "kin" (often of no discernable relationship whatsoever) is impoverishing humanity's record and catering to superstitious nonsense in a shameful manner.
posted by rushmc at 10:32 AM on January 15, 2003

Interesting stuff, Katemonkey.
I fall in the preservation as artifacts camp - I love mummies, and will go out of my way to see them in museums, churches or catacombs...there is something so compelling to me about the way people from the past reach out to give us clues about their lives...they fill me with awe.

A lot of European churches have mummies and skeletons preserved - one unusual place along these lines is in Palermo, documented in Kim Capuchin's Catacombs Page. Thousands of mummies and skeletons, many posed or clothed in the attire of their day.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:07 AM on January 15, 2003

We don't do it too often, but I think rushmc and I agree on this issue! I would have to say though you can't "anthropomorphize" human remains, they're already human, but I understand what you're talking about anyway!
posted by Pollomacho at 11:11 AM on January 15, 2003

I knew someone would call me on that, Pollomacho, but I stand by it. A corpse is not a human. It was, but is no more. (Since you seem uncomfortable agreeing with me, I thought I'd better introduce this point of contention!)
posted by rushmc at 11:26 AM on January 15, 2003

Oh, and neat link, madamjujujive!
posted by rushmc at 11:27 AM on January 15, 2003

I wouldn't call it uncomfortable, just noteworthy. I like to find things to agree on, like the fact that no, a corpse is not a human. It does require a certain level of respect in its handling, but that's mainly for the living that are left behind that might have had a relationship with the deceased, I mean I wouldn't want anyone digging up and screwing around with my dead grandma, but not because her corpse itself holds some magical powers.
posted by Pollomacho at 1:13 PM on January 15, 2003

but that's mainly for the living that are left behind that might have had a relationship with the deceased

An argument that, of course, doesn't apply to remains that are hundreds or even thousands of years old.

What if there were some valid scientific, medical, or historical benefit to digging up grandma? How absolute is your squeamishness? Surely there is a difference between raiding the graveyard for spooky Halloween puppets and anthropological research, for example.
posted by rushmc at 3:01 PM on January 15, 2003