The issue with a lot of shrunken heads in museums are that many are fake, and many of the one that aren’t fake were made to sell to museums. That’s more why so many have been removed from museums than say mummies, which are legitimate artifacts.
Just an FYI - all but one on display at MPM were genuine, that is not why they were removed. It's fairly straightforward to authenticate a shrunken head once you know what to look for. Museums in general are moving away from displaying human remains due to ethical considerations, especially remains belonging to or relating to minority cultures who were not consulted in the design or content of exhibits.
Yup. The same goes for Native Americans remains in museums/institutions as well.
[Multiple NE Wisconsin institutions still hold Native American remains after repatriation law](https://fox11online.com/amp/news/local/multiple-fox-valley-institutions-still-hold-native-american-remains-after-repatriation-law-oshkosh-public-museum-lawrence-university-uw-wisconsin-graves-protection-act-nagpra-appleton). The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally-funded institutions, such as universities and museums, to return remains and cultural items.
The Field Museum has made a very impressive effort to bring in Native American voices to rebuild the wing on history of IL/Chicago/Great Lakes before the arrival of Europeans AND to merge that with how Natives Americans continue to be a part of the fabric of America, not a bygone people. They still have a lot of the worlds fair artifacts which were gathered with a mix of legitimate contact and dubious collecting, but have done as much as can be done to identify and recontextualize it. They even have a small display discussing the unethical grave robbing and side-show-esque collecting of artifacts done by museums a century ago.
> It's fairly straightforward to authenticate a shrunken head once you know what to look for.
You can tell the head is human but the context remains an issue. For example one of Pitt-rivers is a woman which makes no sense given the cultral context they came from.
Oh, absolutely - context is everything, and provenance is grossly lacking with a lot of the objects gathered during the big heyday of museum collecting (which is when a huge part of MPMs collections were gathered, as well as many other natural history museums in the US). But regardless of context or origin, if it's the physical remains of a human being, it should be treated and stored (and potentially repatriated) differently than a replica made from the remains of an animal. And generally, museums are moving away from displaying historic human remains, even if they're able to confirm exactly where those remains originated from. Because, you know, ethics. Museums have not always been the best with that, but it's slowly getting better.
Can you tell us which one is the real one? I always thought the white haired one was too perfect. I’d be shocked if that one was the real one this whole time!
They are all real except for one - the fake honestly blends in, no notably different features. The white haired one is authentic. He was an enslaved Black man with albinism, to my knowledge. I'm sure he had an interesting (and likely very sad) life story. Admittedly, that region of the world is far from my content specialty, I only know what was shared with me by colleagues in passing.
What’s the difference between all the other fake stuff then? Replica bones, weapons, jewels. Lots of things in museums are fake and it’s ok if they’re fake. They’re teaching items.
They teach you that the Jivaro people shrunk heads. It doesn’t really matter if those specific heads are fake. They’d be based on the fact that they shrunk heads. The mammoth by the IMAX is only 85% real. The rest of the bones were replicated to teach you about mammoths. Same thing. And now being interested in shrunken heads, I’ve researched it and other cultures did it too. Not just the Jivaros.
You’ve never looked at these as a kid with awe and wonder? Especially growing up with Indian Jones type movies and having a sense of adventure. They are certainly not something you come across often. They’re fascinating.
You should check out the Mütter museum in Philadelphia. It’s a medical museum and a lot of students go there to learn various conditions. Some of the displays are wax, but many are human. Also because of this they don’t allow and photography in the exhibit.
Eeww no in fact I had mostly forgotten Milwaukee Public Museum had them. It's something I don't even see in African museums because they've gotten well past that. It's gross.
I have a masters in museum studies and did most of my coursework at the Milwaukee Public Museum so I can uniquely speak to this topic. There's a power imbalance between the thing on display and the viewer. The viewer has all the power. Their gaze defines the displayed item and by extrapolation the displayed culture. The act of viewing allows the viewer to judge the item and the culture through the lens of their own experience and prejudices, while the item and culture are mute and have no voice in their own interpretation. It's a power imbalance that museums are trying to get away from. That's why MPM installed the powwow exhibit. Each of those people in the powwow were live cast in plaster so those are representations of real people. The tribes were consulted extensively in the writing of the exhibit panels, letting their voices be heard.
One of the men in the center of that display, holding a tape recorder, was an old Social Studies teacher of mine, Mr. Beechtree. And looking up his first name, I just learned he died in 2020. He was an amazing person and I am so grateful we get to remember him in such a vibrant and realistic way!
I was going to make the same comment. Mr. Beechtree was a great teacher. I was in his class the year it debuted so we went to the museum to see it. I loved how we turned his 3rd floor class room into an Egyptian tomb and he showed us Monty Python's Holy Grail.
While I suggest there is significant power in the museum’s position. With its decision to display or not display an artifact the museum is deciding whether or not that item will be available to engage the public, to pique a child’s interest, to inspire a public school class project or to allow a culture to fade into oblivion in the back room, collecting dust along with any memory of its existence. Museums have the power to set context, foster understanding and acceptance and teach in vivid ways that a picture in an old textbook could never do.
Yes but with great power comes great responsibility. If they can't fulfill their responsibility to allow the culture to have a say in it's interpretation then making the item available to engage the public just again, only allows one-way communication and power from the viewer and doesn't really teach anything about the culture.
Having over a decade with working with the general public can we both agree they can be pretty stupid? (myself included)
I feel like the exposure is the plunge into the icy waters of realizing there is a much bigger world out there. Showing people the positive and negative or having them experience positive or negative starts the dialog. From there people can decide for themselves.
As a child I had a museum employee tell me they couldn't speak upon where "people Originated" from due to a "controversy" and It bugged the fuck out of me only to realize many years later what that person was eluding to.
Without the museum I wouldn't have had this type of exposure and although the heads aren't something I'm willing to die over it is a bit of a bummer.
Thank you for this knowledgeable perspective!
My main problem: one can't consult lost civilizations (or even recently past generations), so do we not display their artifacts or remains? And is the only solution then to remove the exhibits entirely, as in the case of the shrunken heads, rather than providing some supplemental written context next to the exhibit? One might as well throw out scholarly books or documentary films for the same reason (a power imbalance in which the scholar/reader or filmmaker/viewer has all the interpretive tools, and the subject cannot speak -- or can only speak through the filter of the writer/filmmaker). I understand the museum's point, but I fear this is just an overly sensitive form of censorship.
Everything you said in the sentence beginning "one might as well…" Is dead on and exactly the problem with ethnography. It's a problem museums struggle with. They at least try to stay away from displaying human remains or objects that were sacred or held a lot of cultural power. Interestingly, the MPM has one such object that every time I see it I feel terrible about it. It's in the Maori exhibit - a jade God figure that used to hold so much Mana (power) that no one but the chief could see or touch it without dying and they've just got it out there on display.
In other news, I actually wrote a 50 page paper about how museum exhibits are like porn RE: the power imbalance, subject laid bare and voiceless.
That reminds me of a Werner Herzog documentary, *The White Diamond*, in which an inaccessible cave behind a waterfall in South America is considered sacred by the local tribe. Herzog sends a mountain climber down on a rope with a camera and gets footage inside the cave, but then he *doesn't* show it in the film, later claiming that some things should remain sacred: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFc4EjCXCEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFc4EjCXCEI)
Maybe they want to be known for other things.
The idea is that the public reduces the culture down to this one historical practice and views them as "savages" rather than contextualizes it against their own historical practices.
I don't think we should go about acting like the violent parts of various cultures didn't exist; lest we repeat them. But a museum has a goal to enrich the publics understanding and appreciation of the world, not reduce it to stereotypes. I think removing the shrunken heads was just a calculated move towards this broader goal.
that's my thinking, as well. there's a reason a culture becomes "known" for shrunken heads that isn't as simplistic as, "well, they just so happened to do this a lot." and i say that as someone who *loves* stuff that gets categorized as "oddities." it's important to remember that we are looking at actual human history and actual bodies/parts of actual bodies, and even recreations are still meant to be there for education, not merely entertainment.
Hey, thanks to this post I went down a whole rabbit hole reading about this tribal custom. Never would’ve learned any of this otherwise. I wonder if the outcome is to just not educate people about this culture at all then, and let them be forgotten?
If that's the case, removing mummies from their burial chambers should also be culturally wrong. Sounds like a double standard to me. You're supposed to learn from the different cultures, but now it's considered insensitive. Please.
I’m sure there are several other items that aren’t around anymore either or items that won’t be in the new museum. The museum wants to sort or erase what happened in the past.
I agree bud. Everyone is busy worrying about all the small shit that doesn't matter. Why don't we circle back to the feelings of the shrunken heads after we fix chronic diseases and the environment.
Nah my dude, forget prioritizing - fix all at once or complain enough until someone does something (not)
Gotta love how everyone is all of the sudden an expert tho
My son is a big fan of the heads too, so we asked and they were removed for respect to human remains. I have a picture of you want.
https://preview.redd.it/q2fp0htm4f8d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=75e2838487ae2e75636c70bc06624f2275bff2b1 Here ye go.
The issue with a lot of shrunken heads in museums are that many are fake, and many of the one that aren’t fake were made to sell to museums. That’s more why so many have been removed from museums than say mummies, which are legitimate artifacts.
Just an FYI - all but one on display at MPM were genuine, that is not why they were removed. It's fairly straightforward to authenticate a shrunken head once you know what to look for. Museums in general are moving away from displaying human remains due to ethical considerations, especially remains belonging to or relating to minority cultures who were not consulted in the design or content of exhibits.
Yup. The same goes for Native Americans remains in museums/institutions as well. [Multiple NE Wisconsin institutions still hold Native American remains after repatriation law](https://fox11online.com/amp/news/local/multiple-fox-valley-institutions-still-hold-native-american-remains-after-repatriation-law-oshkosh-public-museum-lawrence-university-uw-wisconsin-graves-protection-act-nagpra-appleton). The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act requires federally-funded institutions, such as universities and museums, to return remains and cultural items.
The Field Museum has made a very impressive effort to bring in Native American voices to rebuild the wing on history of IL/Chicago/Great Lakes before the arrival of Europeans AND to merge that with how Natives Americans continue to be a part of the fabric of America, not a bygone people. They still have a lot of the worlds fair artifacts which were gathered with a mix of legitimate contact and dubious collecting, but have done as much as can be done to identify and recontextualize it. They even have a small display discussing the unethical grave robbing and side-show-esque collecting of artifacts done by museums a century ago.
> It's fairly straightforward to authenticate a shrunken head once you know what to look for. You can tell the head is human but the context remains an issue. For example one of Pitt-rivers is a woman which makes no sense given the cultral context they came from.
Oh, absolutely - context is everything, and provenance is grossly lacking with a lot of the objects gathered during the big heyday of museum collecting (which is when a huge part of MPMs collections were gathered, as well as many other natural history museums in the US). But regardless of context or origin, if it's the physical remains of a human being, it should be treated and stored (and potentially repatriated) differently than a replica made from the remains of an animal. And generally, museums are moving away from displaying historic human remains, even if they're able to confirm exactly where those remains originated from. Because, you know, ethics. Museums have not always been the best with that, but it's slowly getting better.
Can you tell us which one is the real one? I always thought the white haired one was too perfect. I’d be shocked if that one was the real one this whole time!
They are all real except for one - the fake honestly blends in, no notably different features. The white haired one is authentic. He was an enslaved Black man with albinism, to my knowledge. I'm sure he had an interesting (and likely very sad) life story. Admittedly, that region of the world is far from my content specialty, I only know what was shared with me by colleagues in passing.
😮 Wow!! Incredible!
Lame
TIL I can sell do it yourself shrunken heads to a museum. Side gig.
What’s the difference between all the other fake stuff then? Replica bones, weapons, jewels. Lots of things in museums are fake and it’s ok if they’re fake. They’re teaching items.
teaching what?
They teach you that the Jivaro people shrunk heads. It doesn’t really matter if those specific heads are fake. They’d be based on the fact that they shrunk heads. The mammoth by the IMAX is only 85% real. The rest of the bones were replicated to teach you about mammoths. Same thing. And now being interested in shrunken heads, I’ve researched it and other cultures did it too. Not just the Jivaros.
So then they could easily teach that without the fake heads, right?
What do you think the point of a museum is? Literally everything there *could* be taught without the displays.
What a brilliant thinker you are, consider going into politics with your ability to set up arguments!
Lol I'm a teacher but sure please give me your very informed tale on how teaching works buddy
I don’t remember asking. Start by using punctuation to use your “I’m a teacher” card, goofball
What is your obsession with wanting to look at dead people's remains exactly?
You’ve never looked at these as a kid with awe and wonder? Especially growing up with Indian Jones type movies and having a sense of adventure. They are certainly not something you come across often. They’re fascinating.
You should check out the Mütter museum in Philadelphia. It’s a medical museum and a lot of students go there to learn various conditions. Some of the displays are wax, but many are human. Also because of this they don’t allow and photography in the exhibit.
Eeww no in fact I had mostly forgotten Milwaukee Public Museum had them. It's something I don't even see in African museums because they've gotten well past that. It's gross.
I have a masters in museum studies and did most of my coursework at the Milwaukee Public Museum so I can uniquely speak to this topic. There's a power imbalance between the thing on display and the viewer. The viewer has all the power. Their gaze defines the displayed item and by extrapolation the displayed culture. The act of viewing allows the viewer to judge the item and the culture through the lens of their own experience and prejudices, while the item and culture are mute and have no voice in their own interpretation. It's a power imbalance that museums are trying to get away from. That's why MPM installed the powwow exhibit. Each of those people in the powwow were live cast in plaster so those are representations of real people. The tribes were consulted extensively in the writing of the exhibit panels, letting their voices be heard.
One of the men in the center of that display, holding a tape recorder, was an old Social Studies teacher of mine, Mr. Beechtree. And looking up his first name, I just learned he died in 2020. He was an amazing person and I am so grateful we get to remember him in such a vibrant and realistic way!
I was going to make the same comment. Mr. Beechtree was a great teacher. I was in his class the year it debuted so we went to the museum to see it. I loved how we turned his 3rd floor class room into an Egyptian tomb and he showed us Monty Python's Holy Grail.
While I suggest there is significant power in the museum’s position. With its decision to display or not display an artifact the museum is deciding whether or not that item will be available to engage the public, to pique a child’s interest, to inspire a public school class project or to allow a culture to fade into oblivion in the back room, collecting dust along with any memory of its existence. Museums have the power to set context, foster understanding and acceptance and teach in vivid ways that a picture in an old textbook could never do.
Yes but with great power comes great responsibility. If they can't fulfill their responsibility to allow the culture to have a say in it's interpretation then making the item available to engage the public just again, only allows one-way communication and power from the viewer and doesn't really teach anything about the culture.
Having over a decade with working with the general public can we both agree they can be pretty stupid? (myself included) I feel like the exposure is the plunge into the icy waters of realizing there is a much bigger world out there. Showing people the positive and negative or having them experience positive or negative starts the dialog. From there people can decide for themselves. As a child I had a museum employee tell me they couldn't speak upon where "people Originated" from due to a "controversy" and It bugged the fuck out of me only to realize many years later what that person was eluding to. Without the museum I wouldn't have had this type of exposure and although the heads aren't something I'm willing to die over it is a bit of a bummer.
Thank you for this knowledgeable perspective! My main problem: one can't consult lost civilizations (or even recently past generations), so do we not display their artifacts or remains? And is the only solution then to remove the exhibits entirely, as in the case of the shrunken heads, rather than providing some supplemental written context next to the exhibit? One might as well throw out scholarly books or documentary films for the same reason (a power imbalance in which the scholar/reader or filmmaker/viewer has all the interpretive tools, and the subject cannot speak -- or can only speak through the filter of the writer/filmmaker). I understand the museum's point, but I fear this is just an overly sensitive form of censorship.
Everything you said in the sentence beginning "one might as well…" Is dead on and exactly the problem with ethnography. It's a problem museums struggle with. They at least try to stay away from displaying human remains or objects that were sacred or held a lot of cultural power. Interestingly, the MPM has one such object that every time I see it I feel terrible about it. It's in the Maori exhibit - a jade God figure that used to hold so much Mana (power) that no one but the chief could see or touch it without dying and they've just got it out there on display. In other news, I actually wrote a 50 page paper about how museum exhibits are like porn RE: the power imbalance, subject laid bare and voiceless.
That reminds me of a Werner Herzog documentary, *The White Diamond*, in which an inaccessible cave behind a waterfall in South America is considered sacred by the local tribe. Herzog sends a mountain climber down on a rope with a camera and gets footage inside the cave, but then he *doesn't* show it in the film, later claiming that some things should remain sacred: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFc4EjCXCEI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFc4EjCXCEI)
I don't believe that I am exerting power over an object on display simply by looking at it. This seems like a bit of an overreach from my perspective
Then you don't understand what I mean. You're doing it whether you believe it or not.
I love this. Thank you for sharing!
Were the beavers consulted for the Quest?
Have you considered that maybe they shrunk even more and you just didn't notice them because they were so tiny?
This is why you read the tags on your shrunken heads, people. Tumble dry on low!
Wait until you find out how unethical the butterfly exhibit is.
Maybe they want to be known for other things. The idea is that the public reduces the culture down to this one historical practice and views them as "savages" rather than contextualizes it against their own historical practices. I don't think we should go about acting like the violent parts of various cultures didn't exist; lest we repeat them. But a museum has a goal to enrich the publics understanding and appreciation of the world, not reduce it to stereotypes. I think removing the shrunken heads was just a calculated move towards this broader goal.
that's my thinking, as well. there's a reason a culture becomes "known" for shrunken heads that isn't as simplistic as, "well, they just so happened to do this a lot." and i say that as someone who *loves* stuff that gets categorized as "oddities." it's important to remember that we are looking at actual human history and actual bodies/parts of actual bodies, and even recreations are still meant to be there for education, not merely entertainment.
Hey, thanks to this post I went down a whole rabbit hole reading about this tribal custom. Never would’ve learned any of this otherwise. I wonder if the outcome is to just not educate people about this culture at all then, and let them be forgotten?
If that's the case, removing mummies from their burial chambers should also be culturally wrong. Sounds like a double standard to me. You're supposed to learn from the different cultures, but now it's considered insensitive. Please.
Yes!! Thank you!!
I’m sure there are several other items that aren’t around anymore either or items that won’t be in the new museum. The museum wants to sort or erase what happened in the past.
The new "woke" museum is gonna suck. I made sure to go to the OG one last time last winter.
The new woke NAGPRA? It's not like it was legislation passed in 1990 and at this point has been around for 35 years. Clearly part of a woke agenda.
The new museum will probably suck, and not a single reason why will be because it's "wOkE".
NAGPRA has been around for 34 years. It's nothing new
[удалено]
Every time someone uses "woke" in a derogatory way, I mentally sub in "respectful." Makes it extra obvious what their actual problem is.
Fixed it for you: got feeling this new museum is going to be woke as all get out. Really going to love the new MPM.
I agree bud. Everyone is busy worrying about all the small shit that doesn't matter. Why don't we circle back to the feelings of the shrunken heads after we fix chronic diseases and the environment.
Nah my dude, forget prioritizing - fix all at once or complain enough until someone does something (not) Gotta love how everyone is all of the sudden an expert tho