The Amazon's head hunters and body shrinkers

I've seen a few shrunken heads in my time, says author Mary Roach, but a 'shrunken boy' seemed like a myth

An anthropologist holds male and female shrunken heads from Ecuador.
(Image credit: Bettmann/CORBIS)

MY FOUR YEARS With the Head Hunters of the Amazon," announces the cover of a circa-1940 brochure detailing a lecture that a man named Gustav Struve would give, for a fee, at your local Shriners club or ­ladies auxiliary. The pamphlet describes him as the sole survivor of an "ill-fated botanical expedition." Struve, it says, was ­taken captive by head hunters, married the chief's daughter, and learned "the secret process of shrinking human heads and even entire bodies."

Shrunken bodies? Struve appeared to have proof; a photo showed a shrunken man nestled in his palm like a passenger in a bucket seat.

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