JIVARO

South American Indian people living in the Montaa (the eastern slopes of the Andes), in Ecuador and Peru north of the Maran River. They speak a language of the Jebero-Jivaroan group. An aboriginal population was once about 30,000 but now numbers less than 20,000. The Jvaro have a tropical-forest agriculture, growing cassava, corn (maize), sweet potatoes, and other crops supplemented by the gathering of wild fruits, fishing, and hunting. The blowgun and poisoned darts are their chief weapons. Related families live in a single large community house rather than in a village. Like other peoples of the Montaa, the Jvaro are warlike. Although influenced by Jesuit missionary efforts, they remain proud that they were never really conquered. The Jvaro are known for their technique of shrinking human heads to the size of an orange. These shrunken heads (tsantsas) are prepared by removing the skin and boiling it; hot stones and sand are then put inside the skin to shrink it further. Headhunting was motivated by a desire for revenge and by the belief that a head gave the taker supernatural power.