Shuar

The Shuar, whom the Spaniards called Jívaros, are rainforest warriors of the eastern foothills of the Andes in Ecuador. Their name in their own Chicham tongue simply means people. They lived in dispersed, autonomous households, moving with their fields of manioc.

Both empires that reached their borders failed to subdue them: in 1527 they destroyed an Inca army sent by Huayna Capac, and a Spanish expedition of 1549 came to nothing.

Early trade with the colonists turned to hatred over forced taxation, and in 1599 the war leader Kirup led the rising that drove the Spaniards out for good after sacking their settlements east of the Andes. Europeans knew them above all for the tsantsa, the shrunken head in which a Shuar warrior believed he imprisoned the victim's soul and strength.