Voices en Español

Mister Taylor by Augusto Monterroso is a brillant satire about U.S. imperalism in Latin America. It’s been described as a modern fable but its key points are grounded in history. I don’t think I’ve ever read a piece that so cleverly addresses U.S. influence in Latin America and criticizes it at the same time in such a humorous manner.

“Mister Taylor” is a story about Mr. Percy Taylor of Boston, Mass. who winds up living in some unnamed South American country in the 1940s. He’s financially broke and doing nothing, until one day during a walk in the jungle he bumps into one of the natives who offers to sell him a shrunken head.

“Buy head? Money, money.”

That chance meeting leads to an unexpected business opportunity that affects, (or should I say infects), the society of the Latin American country where Mr. Taylor lives.

Believe or not but there was a time when collecting shrunken heads from South America was all the rage in Western countries. I did a little digging around and came across a story published in 1921 in National Geographic about the Jivaro Indians in Ecuador. They were a ferocious people, famous for their bellicose nature and for being the only known South American tribe that successfully defied being conquered by the Spanish conquistadors AND being taken over by the Incas. Their reputation for shrinking the heads of their enemies as trophies became their calling card and probably one of their best weapons to ward off invaders. The National Geographic article, published 88 years ago, is fascinating. Here’s an excerpt about the souvenir trade of shrunken heads:

Because of the interest aroused in the outside world by tales concerning these head-hunters, there has been in the past a lively trade in human heads. The Jivaros, learning that there was a demand which could be capitalized into muskets, quickly gave a ready response; so that it became necessary for the Ecuadorean Government strictly to forbid the traffic in these objects.

Tales are told of the results of this practice which are not without a certain grim irony. There is a story, for example, of a red-headed white man who went into the interior on a trip of exploration charged with the commission of bringing out a dried and shrunken head. It was months after he had departed that a shrunken-head came out, by devious channels, from the Oriente, but the head had red hair. Perhaps a red-haired head brought the price of 2 muskets; who could tell?

Hmmm, could that have been the original Mr. Taylor, perhaps?

In any case, the National Geographic article goes on to say that the Jivaro Indians, despite their fearsome reputation, were quite nice to their researchers.  “Contrary to our expectations, after hearing stories of the Jivaro (and to the average Ecuadorean the word Jivaro is synonymous with violent death and all manner of disagreeable things), we found then a good-natured people and very friendly to us.”

Listen to Part 1 of Mister Taylor and visit Head-Hunter.com (how appropriate!) to read more about the Jivaro people. I’ll post part 2 of the story later next week.

Photo: Jivaro Shrunken Head by Ed Schipul