This is from Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl and his friend Herman Watzinger talk with Jorge, a Peruvian acquaintance, over dinner.
I laid my fork carefully aside, and Jorge told his story. He was once living with his wife in the jungle, washing gold and buying up supplies for other gold-washers. The family had at that time a native friend who brought his gold regularly and sold it for goods. One day this friend was killed in the jungle. Jorge tracked down the murderer and threatened to shoot him. Now the murderer was one of those who suspected of selling shrunken human heads, and Jorge promised to spare this life if he handed over the head at once. The murderer at once produced the head of Jorge’s friend. Now as small as a fist, Jorge was quite upset when he saw his friend again, for he was quite changed except that he had become so very small. Much moved, he took the little head home to his wife. She fainted when she saw it, and Jorge had to hide his friend in a trunk.
But it was so damp in the jungle that clusters of green mold formed on the head, so that Jorge had to take it out now and then and dry it in the sun. It hung very nicely by the hair on a clothesline, and Jorge’s wife fainted every time she caught sight of it. But one day a mouse gnawed its way into the trunk and made a horrid mess of his friend. Jorge was much distressed and buried his friend with full ceremonies in a tiny little hole up on the airfield. For after all he was a human being, Jorge concluded.
“Nice dinner,” I said to change the subject.
Nehaveigur 