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by the river. Over the place where the head was buried a hot fire was lit. After a few hours the head was dug up and the skull bones pulled out through the jagged neck. The head was buried again under a fire for many hours, until it shrank to the size of a clenched fist. The shrunken head looked just like the man when he was alive: all the features – the lips, eyelids, lashes, eyebrows, everything – just the same. Finally the head was filled with sand to make it solid and hung as an ornament from a belt. According to Indian lore, the strength of the dead enemy passed to the warrior who killed him, and the warrior became twice as strong. The more heads an Indian has on his belt, the stronger he is assumed to be.

When one of the members of the tribe dies, the village has a big cremation rite. Karl had been present at one of them and recalled it with great enthusiasm. The deceased was an old man who had died a natural death. Average life expectancy for the tribe was about forty-five years. The men built a big bonfire in the centre of the village. The women brought urns of chicha and sang mourning songs. The deceased, with his belt of five shrunken heads, was tossed into the bonfire.

‘The smell of the burning body made me nauseous,’ Karl said with a grimace, ‘but I managed to keep a straight face. I didn’t want them to see how disgusted I was.’

The women wailed some incomprehensible lamentation, while the men danced about to the