Entertainment
Shrunken head uses as prop in movie Wise Blood confirmed to be made of real human skin
A shrunken head that featured in the 1979 film Wise Blood has been confirmed to be real and composed of human tissue.
In a scene from John Huston’s Wise Blood, a shrunken head, known as a tsantsa, is seen attached to a fake body, with a character saying the person ‘used to be as tall’ as him and the tsantsa becoming the object of his worship.
While viewers may have assumed the whole thing was fake, researchers have discovered that the shrunken head was indeed real, and will be returning it to Ecuador’s government.
The head was obtained by Mercer University in Georgia in 1942 after a former faculty member acquired it while serving in the US military in Ecuador.
Over the past few years, scientists Craig D. Byron and Adam M. Kiefer from Mercer University have been carrying out tests on the artefact, and in a research paper shared on Heritage Science, they concluded that it is ‘presumed to be an authentic tsantsa composed of human tissue’.
The team spent years carrying out testing the tsantsa’s size, structure, hair, hairstyle and many other factors, including conducting CT scans.
They have confirmed the tsantsa in Wise Blood holds 30 of the 33 indicators needed to affirm its authenticity.
Byron told The Art Newspaper: ‘It’s a relief to have the specimen out of our possession. It had “underground” value; it was illegal to trade or sell; it was the skin from a person’s head.
‘We had no business holding on to this item. It was a rewarding conclusion to a project hanging around since 2015.’
According to the paper, tsantas are cultural artefacts that were made from human remains by certain indigenous culture groups of Ecuador and Peru.
The artefacts, which became ‘monetarily valuable as keepsakes and curios during the nineteenth century’, are made from the skin ‘of enemies slain during combat’ and were believed to contain ‘the spirit of the victim and all their technical knowledge and thus were considered to possess supernatural qualities and represent a source of personal power for the owner.’
The tsanta will now be returned to Ecuador’s government.
Wise Blood, starring Brad Dourif, Dan Shor, Amy Wright, Harry Dean Stanton, and Ned Beatty, was based on the 1952 novel Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor.
It followed a preacher of a religious organisation of his own creation, which is against any belief in God, an afterlife, sin, or evil, as he meets various people on his mission.
The black comedy was directed by celebrated screenwriter and director John Huston, the father of Anjelica Huston.
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