Shuar Jivaro the Muslim Beheaders of Ecuador

Shuar Jivaro the Muslim Beheaders of Ecuador 

The Shuar people are an indigenous people of Ecuador and Peru. They are members of the Jivaroan peoples, who are Amazonian tribes living at the headwaters of the Marañón River. 

Name

Shuar, in the Shuar language, means “people.”^[1] The people who speak theShuar language live in tropical rainforestbetween the upper mountains of theAndes, and the tropical rainforests and savannas of the Amazonian lowlands, inEcuador extending to Peru. Shuar live in various places — thus, the muraiya(hill) shuar are people who live in the foothills of the Andes; the achu (swamp-palm) shuar (or Achuar) are people who live in the wetter lowlands east of the Andes (Ecuador and Peru).

Shuar refer to Spanish-speakers as apach, and to non-Spanish/non-Shuar speakers as inkis. Europeans and European Americans used to refer to Shuar as jívaros or jíbaros; this word probably derives from the 16th century Spanish spelling of “shuar” (see Gnerre 1973), but has taken other meanings including “savage”; outside of Ecuador, Jibaro has come to mean “rustic”. The Shuar are popularly depicted in a wide variety of travelogue and adventure literature because of Western fascination with their former practice of shrinking human heads (tsantsa).

Social organization and contacts with Europeans

From the time of first contact with Europeans in the 16th century, to the formation of the Shuar Federation in the 1950s and 1960s, Shuar were semi-nomadic and lived in separate households dispersed in the rainforest, linked by the loosest of kin and political ties, and lacking corporate kin-groups or centralized or institutionalized political leadership.^[2]

The center of Shuar life was a relatively autonomous household consisting of a husband, his wives (usually two), unmarried sons, and daughters. Upon marriage sons would leave their natal household, and sons-in-law would move in (see matrilocal residence). Men hunted and wove clothes; women gardened. Both men and women were involved in feuding warfare with other groups. In 1527, the Shuar defeated an incursion by the Inca armies of Huayna Capac.^[2]

When Shuar first made contact with Spaniards in the 16th century, they entered into peaceful trade relations. They violently resisted taxation, and drove Spaniards away in 1599. 

Colonization and missionization in the 20th century have led Shuar to reorganize themselves into nucleated settlements called centros. Centros initially facilitated evangelization by Catholic missionaries but also became a means to defend Shuar land claims against those of non-indigenous settlers. In 1964 representatives of Shuar centros formed a political Federation to represent their interests to the state, non-governmental organizations, and transnational corporations.

Tsantsa, the shrunken heads

Tsantsa or shrunken head.

In the 19th century muraiya Shuar became famous among Europeans and Euro-Americans for their elaborate process of shrinking the heads of slain Achuar. Although non-Shuar characterized these shrunken heads (tsantsa) astrophies of warfare, Shuar insisted that they were not interested in the heads themselves and did not value them as trophies. Instead, they sought themuisak, or soul of the victim, which was contained in and by the shrunken head. Shuar men believed that control of the muisak would enable them to control their wives’ and daughters’ labor.^[3][4]

Since women cultivated manioc and made chicha (manioc beer), which together provided the bulk of calories and carbohydrates in the Shuar diet, women’s labor was crucial to Shuar biological and social life. In the late 19th century and early 20th century Europeans and Euro-Americans began trading manufactured goods, including shotguns, asking in return for shrunken heads. The result was an increase in local warfare, including head hunting, that has contributed to the perception of the Shuar as violent.^[3][4] In 1961 Edmundo Bielawski made the only footage showing what appears to be their head-shrinking process.

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