The Significance of Later Nasca Trophy Heads

As time moved along, the significance of the trophy heads transformed into a more outwardly aggressive practice.  Between AD 450-750, the Nasca began collecting the heads of their enemies, while continuing the practice of gathering their ancestor’s heads.   The pressure for resources from other tribes as well as the environmental pressures of the area might have encouraged the transformation of the trophy head’s significance.  A drought occurred in AD 560 that then lasted for the next forty years, increasing the scarcity of resources in the area to astronomical levels.  The struggle for fertility in the area, only increased due to this drought.  In addition to the drought, if it was due to the resource scarcity or territory expansion, the appearance of the Wari and Tirwanaku tribes led to a higher tendency for warfare. Whether due to the presence of the other tribes or the increased competition for resources, the Nasca began collecting the heads of enemies as well as the heads of their ancestor.

There is a different culture existing in Ethiopia called the Surma communities that can be compared to the Nasca drought in the early to late stages of their culture.  Young Surma men had ritual violence against other young Surma men.  It is an area that has a lower percentage of women existing in the area.  Women, like water to the Nasca, are scarce resources in the area.  Both men and women are necessary for reproduction; reproduction is necessary for their survival.  The Nasca became outwardly aggressive towards the other tribes of the area to increase their likelihood of gaining access to the few assets of water.  Similarly, the Surma men use ritual violence in the form of stick fighting to increase their likelihood of gaining access to the few women of the area.  The Surma men do not engage in this practice of ritual violence, unless other Surma women are present (Abbink).  Similarly, the Nasca did not need to become outwardly aggressive until the 40-year drought threatened their survival.  They did not react the aggressive stage until their resources were endangered.

Abbink, Jon.  1999, Ritual, and Reproduction: Culture and Context in Surma Dueling. Ethnography. 38 (3):227-242, University of Pittsburgh.

Nazca Religion

            Nazca religion is based off the idea that man and nature are relate in an active sacred relationship with themes of Animatism and supernatural forces controlling nature and their resources (all they wanted to do was control and understand).  Many theorists believe that this practice came about due to the harsh environment they lived in (a weather average so diverse that they only could give me averages based on longitude and latitude).  These beliefs are so strong that there are religious representations in their beautiful ceramic artwork.  Their artwork incorporated their need for Animatisms and their need to control nature because of supernatural forces inverting need to control nature.   They had mythical beings are made up of representations of air, earth, and water; these beings were the most powerful forces. 

            The ritual taking of the Trophy Heads were an important aspect of Nazca religion.  This is assumed because of how pervasive the trophy heads are in ceramic artwork.  These trophy heads are soon with individuals that are closely linked with mythical beings, and scenes of warfare and rituals.  The bloodshed, decapitation, and group burials are closely linked to agriculture fertility and regeneration.  Examples of this are when the heads are depicted with plants growing from their mouths.  “Nazca people appear to have visualized a continuity between sacrifice and death, the burial of human trophy heads, and the regeneration of agricultural plants. Human trophy heads were not only the most sacred offering made to the nature spirits, but were integral part of their world view". (Donald A. Proulx)   

 

         

References

Proulx, Donald A. 2000, Nasca Ceramic Iconography: An Overview. 29(1):36-43. The Studio Potter. 

Proulx, Donald A. 1999, The Nazca Culture: An Introduction. 59-77. Nasca: Gehimnisvolle Zeichen im Alten Peru. (photo is Figure 15).

Headless Bodies or Bodiless Heads

         

            Nasca trophy heads are fairly common artifacts found in burials; however, headless burials are almost a rarity in the region.  Their lack contrasts against the increase in the amount of trophy heads found of the Middle and Late Nasca, due to the warfare and conflict of the time.  Though archaeologist Deloeonardis believes their absence could be the result of the high percentage of looting in the region, it could also be do to different ways of disposing of the bodies. 

Many partial-body burials have been found buried apart from others or in caches.  These burials consist of skeletons missing a body part, disarticulated skeletons and body parts missing a skeleton.  Though this may explain some of the scarcity of headless bodies found in the Nasca, it does not account for all.  The few headless bodies that have been found have had their heads removed post mortem.  Few headless bodies have found decapitation to be the cause of death. 

Some of these have been found with head-replacement objects such as a ceramic head jar.  Ceramic head jars are fairly common artifacts in Nasca burials, but are seen as a rarity when found with headless burials.  A ceramic head jar is a pottery jar with image of a head and face, sometimes including turbans.  Burials with these ceramic head were purposeful burials, suggesting they were not a result of enemy combat or the warfare of the time.  It is believed that their deaths and decapitated burials could be the result of a sacrifice associated with agriculture fertility or a ritual of the time (Conlee). 

 

Nasca Ceramic Jar Head- commonly found in burials and occasionally found with decapitated skeletons (Conlee).

 

Skeletons as a result of decapitation were found in over have a dozen Neolithic sites in Anatolia.  The decapitated skulls were placed on altars and were believed to have links with the dead and possibly had the powers of the deceased.  Like the Nasca, more decapitated skulls have been found in Anatolia, then headless bodies.  The headless bodies were found in beneath floorboards of houses instead of placed upon altars.  One of these had a large round stone placed at the head of the skeleton suggesting a possible representation of the missing head.  The Nasca headless bodies with ceramic head jars were said to be non-conflict related decapitation, because of the care taken to bury the body.  The same is suggested in Anatolia and the large round stone head-representation (Talalay).

Conlee, Christina A. 2007. Decapitation and Rebirth: A Headless Burial in Nasca, Peru. Department of Anthropology: Texas State University.

Talalay, Lauren E. 2007. Heady Business: Skulls, Heads, and Decapitation in Neolithic Anatolia and Greece.  Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan

Sarawak’s Trophy Heads: The Purpose of a Headhunting Ritual

 Why did tribes take the heads of their enemies? What purpose was this in the after life? Why was this so important to have the whole body when burying the dead? Off the coast of Indonesia is an island that is part of Borneo.  White rajahs ruled it some 200 years ago. 

The tribe Dayak with the heads of their enemies displayed above 

On the Island was a tribe called Dayak, which were ruled by the white rajahs.  A group member of the headhunters is actually a descendent of a white rajah.*  The Dayak tribe was only one tribe on the island; there were others who practiced this headhunting as well.  The Kayans, Kenyahs, ad Ibans also used this practice and therefore it was a ritual in war against one another.  There has been speculation as to if the Nasca headhunted because of war or if they were mere trophies of the dead.  There is a big similarity with the way the Nasca display their head and how the Dayak display their trophy heads and thus this may be an indication of a similarity in purpose.

A Dayak man with heads waiting to be mounted onto a displayer in the village

When tribes in Borneo went to war there would be rituals for the wining side.  To show that they conquered their enemy, the Dayak and other tribes in Sarawak would bring these heads back to their tribe and show the women that they were worthy.  In this culture, a man would be brave and bold by taking the head of their enemy and proved to the women that they could do their part for the tribe.  Although we do not know for sure if this was a gift to women as an offering for marriage but it was definitely encouraged by the women of Iban and other tribes. 

Unlike the Nasca, we know that these tribes did this decapitation of their enemies as a trophy and sign of success. After a battle there would be a station where all the heads of their enemy would be hanging by strings.  Here is an example of one:

A visual drawing of a Dayak head displayed

Here is the display of heads to show how strong the tribe was towards other tribes. each one of these heads are representations of how the Dayaks have taken other people's souls so that they cannot "rest in peace"

The dead whose heads were captured by their enemy are never put to because their soul is apart of their head. If a Dayak found another Dayak, dead from battle, they would drag the dead body to another location, take off the head and bury it somewhere else so that at least they knew another tribe could not take their fellow tribesmen’s head.

           

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Fun fact from the TV show “The Office” about headhunting:

Pam Beesly: Do you have any leads on a job?

Michael Scott: Pam what you don't understand is at my level, you don't just look in the want ads for a job, you are headhunted!

Jim Halpert: Have you called any headhunters?

Michael Scott: Any good headhunter knows that I am available.

Dwight Schrute: Any really good headhunter will storm your village at sunset with overwhelming force and cut off your head with a ceremonial knife.

Much of the public is misinformed about the definition of what headhunters really are.  Dwight is an example because he believes headhunters are always savages who have no reason for doing this chaos and would chop off anyone’s head.  Headhunting is a ritual done in a culture because it is their way of living; it is not the wrong way to live it is just a different way.

Dwight

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            *Hi, my name is Mandy Russ and I am the great, great, great granddaughter of the 2^nd white rajah of Sarawak., Charles Anthony Brooke.  Charles married a woman named Mastiah who was the daughter of a leader in the Dayak tribe.  They had a child together named Esca.  Normally this child should have become the 3^rd white rajah, but because his mother’s skin was darker and the white rajahs are to rule over the people of Dayak, Charles didn’t think it would be a good idea to keep up this marriage.  Tia (Mastiah) and Charles divorced and Charles married a woman wealthier.  Since the child was half Caucasian and half native he was more of a hassle then anything else so he was banished to England. There a deacon who was a friend of the 1^st white rajah raised Esca.  His name was Dakin.  Esca inherited the name Dakin and when he was older moved to Canada.  There he married Edith Beatrice and had four children.  Their only son is my grandmother’s father.  His name was Cyril.  He had but one daughter who migrated to the United States.  Barbra was her name.  The she married William Falls and had three children.  One of these children’s names is Kathleen who married Brian Russ and had a child name Amanda.  And that is the story of my ancestors. 

Reference:

Fabricius, Karl.

"In Search of the Headhunting Tribes of Borneo." Popular | Environmental Graffiti. Web. 25 Oct. 2010. <http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/headhunting-tribes-borneo/20773>.

Henry Longhurst (1956)

The Borneo Story: The History Of The First 100 Years Of Trading In The Far East By The Borneo Company Limited. Percy Lund, Humphries & Co. Ltd. London and Bradford.

Peter Metcalf (1984)

A Borneo Journey into Death: Berawan Eschatology from Its Rituals by

American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 86, No. 1, pp. 223-224

Reece, Bob (2004)

The White Rajahs of Sarawak: a Borneo Dynasty. Singapore: Archipelago, 2004. Print.

The Office Quotes. The Office, 26 Mar. 2009. Web. 24 Oct. 2010. <http://www.theofficequotes.com/season-5/two-weeks>.

The Preparation: Shrunken Heads and Trophy Head Methods

Stipulation: The article about the practice of shrinking heads is from the 1920s so some of the information is vague about in what culture they observed this practice of shrinking heads.  They generalize the practice of shrinking heads to be done by all Amazonian Indians; however the method of how they shrink the heads seems to be legitimate because of a comparison with another source.

Jivaro, Non-Ceremonial Shrunken Head

Over 100 Nasca trophy heads have been found in Peru, making the Nasca, along with Paracas (a tribe also found in ancient Peru), one of the few cultures that used decapitated heads for ritual use.  Each head is prepared in a particular manner.  These heads were removed from the body using a sharp obsidian knife.   The cut split the cervical vertebrae, completing removing the head from the body. 

 Cervical Vertebrae (neck), demonstrating the cut where the head was removed.

From there, a club was taken to the base of the skull, removing the foramen magnum along with parts of the occipital bone (Proulx 2001:123).  All the soft tissue, including the eyes, muscles and the brain were removed from the skull through this hole at the base of the skull (DeLeonardis 2000:366).  The next part is the process that makes Nasca trophy heads so unique; the hole for the carrying rope must be created.  A hole must be punctured or drilled through the center of forehead.  A wooden toggle attached to the end of the carrying rope is then inserted into the head through the forehead hole.  This secures the rope in place.

Nasca Trophy Heads

Nasca trophy heads are naturally mummified.  Their lips and eyes are sewn shut with cactus needles or thorns from huardango trees.  The head is now stuffed with cloth, though some skulls have found traces of maize, cactus skins, maní and pacae (Proulx 2001:124).  The finished product is supposed to appear lifelike, generally still having skin and hair on the outside of the skull (DeLeonardis 2000:367).

Jivaro Shrunken head found in Cuenca, Ecuador

The conqueror cuts off the head, spilts the scalp by a vertical incision in the occipital region, and neatly removes the skull with the brain, eyes, muscles, jaw, and tongue, leaving the skin of the face and scalp intact.  The incision is closed a continuous stitch and the coetaneous bag is packed with hot pebbles, or hot sand, and carefully dried in the sun… When this process is complete the skin shrinks to the size of an orange preserving the features (John Bland-Sutton 1922)

Similar to what the Nasca do their own shrunken heads lips these Amazonian Indians seal the lips shut with thread, instead of cactus needles, that can be dyed in alternating colors or un-dyed.  

References:

Bland-Sutton, James (1922)

Spolia Nemoralia (Shrunken Heads, Ear-plugs, and Labrets).  The British Medical Journal. 2(3228) 932-934. BMJ Publishing Groups.

DeLeonardis, Lisa

The Body Context: Interpretating Early Nasca Decapitated Burials In Latin American Antiquity. Society for American Archaeology. 11(4):363-386. 2000 http://www.jstor.org/stable/972002

Proulx, Donald A.

Ritual Uses of Trophy Heads in Ancient Nasca Society In Ritual Sacrifice in Ancient Peru, edited by Elizabeth Benson and Anita Cook. Austin: University of Texas Press. Pp. 119-136. 2001

Fun Fact: If you would like to Shrink heads yourself, this website will show you how.  Go to http://shrunkenheadcookbook.com/shrunken-heads-gallery.html

Created By: Catie, Kristina, and Mandy

A comparison of Nasca and Asmat Headhunters: The Collectors of Trophies and Identities

David Browne stated that: “nowhere and at no time in ancient Peru did severed head iconography and actual head-hunting reach the apparent obsession of Nasca” (David Browne 1993: 275).

Here is a picture of the hole in the middle of the skull where the rope was tied through (Browne).

Not all severed heads can be called trophy heads; for it to be called a “trophy head,” it has to meet the minimal criteria (Browne 275).  A hole has to be present in the frontal bone of the head, because that is where they would string a carrying rope through the skull.  That is the main requirement for a Nasca trophy head; however there are some other qualities these trophy heads could have: widen foramen magnums (drainage of soft tissues for mummification to occur), sealing of eyes/lips with spines, and cotton can be stuffed under skin flaps (this was to keep the original facial shape). 

Here is an example of a Nasca trophy head with the carrying rope (Browne).

There is a debate whether or not that the Nasca “trophy heads” label is appropriate; there is question as to whether the severed heads were “obtained as trophies of wars or memorabilia of non-conquest ritual practices” (Browne 275).  In early Nasca times (100 B.C.-A.D. 400/500) trophy heads were not a common practice; however, this practice changed from supernatural to a form of strength in warfare. The use of these trophy heads were an indication of an individual’s social powers.    

Another practice of headhunting happened in New Guinea up until the 1900s.  In contrast to the Nasca trophy heads, headhunting in New Guinea still was focused around obtaining and capturing the soul but in a different way.  When a child of the Asmat people came to a certain age they needed a new social identity.  The Asmat men would go on headhunting raids to seek out new names for their children.  The names of these people had more meaning than our use of a name because each name held a social identity and power of the victim; when the victim was beheaded the name and the social identity was transmitted to the new owner of the name being the child (Harrison 2002: 215).

The kin of the beheaded must now treat the new owner of the name as if it were their own relation.  Before all of this transpired the men of the Asmat must acquire the victims name before they beheaded them.  Sometimes they would use trickery to obtain the name.  Each child could be presented with more then one name and inherit all the powers of the beheaded.  With this new power there was some psychological factors to the new identity in that the new child began to act as the victim (Harrison 2002: 221).  Both the Asmat in New Guinea and the Nasca trophy heads in Peru believed that heads contained social powers and identities. They held a spiritual meaning in both the cultures. 

Here we had a collection of many people's heads.  Each head is a representation of the name that other people now posses

Citations:

Harrison, Simon

            2002 The Politics of Resemblance: Ethnicity, Trademarks, Head-Hunting. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Electronic document. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3134473?seq=9, Accesed: September 12, 2010.

Browne, David M., Helaine Silverman and Rubén García

            1993 A Cache of 48 Nasca Trophy Heads from Cerro Carapo, Peru. Latin American Antiquity. Electronic document. http://www.jstor.org/stable/971792, Accesed: September 12, 2010.