Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found review – grimly fascinating

Frances Larson’s book shows how human heads have played a key role in European society from being brought back as war trophies to being depicted in art

According to Frances Larson, headhunting is not the preserve of “exotic, strange and dangerous worlds far from civilisation”. As her grimly fascinating history shows, human heads have played a key role in our society and culture, from science and warfare to religion and art. Her interest in this gruesome subject began while working at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, famous for its controversial display of 10 shrunken human heads, known as “tsantsas”, from the Shuar who live in the Amazonian rainforest. As Larson points out, these spiritually powerful objects were turned into a commodity by European curiosity: the price of a head was one gun. Many collectors were duped though: only three of the 10 tsantsas in the museum are in fact authentic. Larson is a subtle reader of the meanings of such heads and skulls that both repel and fascinate us, whether they were brought back as trophies of war or venerated at sacred shrines. Ultimately, they bring us face to face with our own fragility and mortality: “A severed head looks at us from another world, where we are all destined to go.”

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