Hollywood Gets It Right

You know those adventure movies where the main character ends up lost in some jungle only to encounter a person with feathers sticking out of their nose, body paint as clothing, a poison dart poised to shoot, and a collection of shrunken heads?? Well...THEY EXIST. And I had no idea.

 These people are called Shuar and they live in the Amazon region in Ecuador. And I´m serious, they really do shrink heads. But, because of the attention they have gotten in the modern and connected world, the idea of "head hunting" has now become more of an opportunity to make money and so it has become an illegal practice. But still, it´s really cool. And these Shuar people are not the only Hollywood-inspiring indigenous groups in Ecuador, as it turns out, about 30% of Ecuador´s entire population is indigenous. How many Native Americans do we have left in the States? Less than 1% I believe. Yesterday my group and I went to a museum showcasing all the different types of indigenous groups here in Ecuador and I certainly learned a lot. Besides gawking at the number of shrunken heads they had in the museum, I couldn´t believe the artwork. Everything is beautiful, from the clothes they dress themselves in (if any at all) down to the utensils they use (if any at all). And what was especially unique about this museum was that the land it was built on is sort of a museum itself...

These Inca ruins extend around the entire museum, including this part called the Temple of the Sun...

It´s interesting to learn about indigenous cultures in general, but the fact that the ones here are still so alive and prevalent is fascinating. Many times each day, in the modern and fashionable city of Cuenca, I see women dressed in skirts they made themselves with the long braids and Panama hats that put together we all know from the National Geographic magazines. I still haven´t gotten used to it, but if anything, it is a constant reminder that new and different things are always lurking around the corner. And that I´m in fact the minority here...which is a strange feeling too.