Over dinner, you would not be interested in learning about this.
Ecuador's Shuar people had a method—precise and cruel. They would take their trophy, the head of their opponent, and make it the size of your fist.
The procedure resembled cooking; if cooking could cause nightmares. First, cautious as a man skinning an orange, they would peel the skin from the skull. Like opening an envelope, they would remove the skull itself through the neck.
And then arrived the boiling. Three times in water loaded with herbs and tannins. Like heating whiskey with a hot poker, they would heat little rocks between each boiling until they glowed red and drop them inside the head.
This went beyond mere trophy collecting. Every reduced head, known as tsantsa, carried power. The Shuar thought it caught the spirit of the enemy, stopped retribution from beyond death. It was spiritual handcuffs—a means of controlling the dead.
They would sew the eyes and mouth shut with cotton string, black as night. This was "insurance," ensuring the spirit could not see or talk or flee.
The last touch was smoke, hanging the head over a fire until it turned black as old leather. Preservation, but also it was a part of the ritual—the last seal on their spiritual prison.
European collectors began spending good money for these heads by the 1900s. The market got so hot it distorted the entire approach.
Some tribes began killing only for profit—for goods. The old ways, the spiritual meaning, got lost like the mystery of who took your last piece of cake.
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