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This sample comes from Jane's second book, The Head with the Long Yellow Hair (1958). Published only in England and long out of print, this account of her adventures among the Aushiri and Jivaro tribes of Ecuador is rare and difficult to find, even on the used book market. And that is a shame, because it contains some of her most exciting narrations.
The following passage takes place after Jane has been staying among the Jivaro, well known for their head shrinking skills. With the aid of a Christianized Jivaro couple she befriended named Taisha and Zuntanqui, she will become a rare outsider witness to an actual headshrinking ceremony.
[The passage begins after Jane had already witnessed the three-day process of shrinking a head, but before the celebratory festivities that would follow.]
 I walked slowly towards the hut in the darkening twilight, going over and over again in my mind the events that had taken place during the past few days. In retrospect it was almost unbelievable, and yet I had actually witnessed the shrinking of a human head.
As I neared the hut Taisha came out of the shadows and with his hand beckoned me to follow. I veered to the left and disappeared with him into the black rim of the jungle. He looked cautiously about as though afraid he might be overheard and then finally, when he was satisfied that we were undetected, whispered in broken Spanish that I must leave immediately. Very soon, he inferred, the Jivaros would begin their orgiastic rituals, which would last all night, and these, he said, were 'muy muy malo' (very very bad). He wanted me to wait in the jungle while he returned to the hut for his wife and our baggage and the three of us would then slip away through the darkened night to safety. He was frightened and clearly thought I was too.
But frightened or not, I quite frankly wanted to witness the celebration, no matter what the consequences, and I told Taisha that it was impossible for me to leave because I had to see everything. Taisha shook his head slowly in dumb amazement and with the back of his hand wiped the sweat from his forehead. He kept repeating over and over again 'muy malo'. Finally, when he saw I was adamant and refused to go, he turned and still keeping within the perimeter of the jungle made a semi-circle around the clearing until we reached a point just opposite the Jivaro hut. There he stopped and quickly scanned the trees. Finally he found one to his liking and told me that if I insisted on staying and watching the orgy I would have to hide in the tree, where no one could see me.
I honestly felt he was exaggerating the danger, but in order to placate him I let Taisha boost me up the trunk to where I could grab a limb and find a branch I could straddle. By tearing off just a few leaves I had a perfect view of the clearing and the hut, and yet the foliage was so thick that no one could possibly have seen me from the ground.
I wanted to ask Taisha how long I would have to wait before something happened, but suddenly I heared the wild shrieking of women coming from the direction of the hut and seconds later the door burst open and all Hell broke loose. I looked for Taisha, but he had silently disappeared, and I began to wonder when I would ever see him again.
At this moment a full moon, more red than yellow, appeared over the horizon, basking the entire jungle with an eerie red glow. Into this unearthly nightmare of colour came the principal actors--twenty or thirty drunken Jivaro men and women, many of them carrying gourds filled with Natem. They staggered and lurched about, stopping every now and then to emit wildly savage screams that really sent shivers up my spine. And then I heard music, the beat of drums and the weird piping of bamboo flutes. The leading actor of this fantastic tableau was Sharupi [the witch doctor who had shrunk the head], who staggered slowly out of the hut, the shrunken head held high in his left hand. Reaching the center of the clearing, he placed the shrunken head on a slender pole which had been erected for that purpose.
The musicians now took their places in a circle around the pole and the beat of the drums stepped up in tempo. The Jivaros formed a long irregular line. Heading the procession was Sharupi; after him a woman, then another man and another woman, and so on down the entire length of the line, each with his arms tightly encircling the chest of the one in front of him, and with body touching body they picked up the tempo of the music and began their grotesque dance of the shrunken head.
The dance consisted of two hops forward and two hops backward, and the line slowly moved forward in a circle around the head. Now and then there was a momentary halt as the gourds were emptied and quickly refilled. The women shriked in ecstasy and the men groaned with desire.
* * *
I shrank back into the shadows and held my breath, while my body dripped with perspiration. The line, like a writhing serpent, slowly circled the shrunken head, and the air was filled with the ribald shouts of the dancers whose bodies now glistened with sweat. When Sharupi passed a point just opposite of where I was crouched he suddenly broke out of the clasp of the woman behind him and, turning, quickly tore off his itipi, throwing it high in the air. It fell to the earth with a sodden plop. Now stark naked, he stood alone, his body gyrating obscenely to the furious beat of the drums. His face was contorted, almost inhuman. For just a moment the line of dancers wavered and then, following their leader's example, they tore off their clothes to the accompaniment of wild shrieks and diabolical laughter. And now the line re-formed and with arms tightly encircling naked breasts, moved forward in the eerie red light of the jungle moon, casting grotesque shadows on the ground.
Old women with passions long dormant scurried in and around the dancers handing out gourds of natem and chicha--jungle brews which further enflamed the primitive desires of these savage Indians.* Again the line made a compete circle around the shrunken head. But now hands strayed promiscuously. The debauchery was reaching its inevitable climax. One couple broke away from the line, staggered a few feet and fell to the ground arms interlocked around their bodies. Other couples followed. Sharupi staggered away with Zutanqui, and almost immediately fell to the soft warm earth, pulling the shrieking girl down on top of him. Within just a matter of minutes the dance had turned into a wild orgy.
Now I realized why Taisha had been so anxious for me to leave the village. I had no doubt in my mind that had my hiding-place been discovered I would have been a victim of their sadistic lusts. The moon rose higher and higher and the orgy continued, but now most of the revellers lay unconscious or asleep.
Suddenly I heard a loud whisper. It startled me so that I almost fell from my hiding-place. Had I been discoered? I peered down through the leaves and saw Taisha and Zutanqui. Their eyes were large with fright. Taisha motioned for me to come down. Reaching the ground, I saw that they had my luggage and camera equipment. Taisha put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, 'Vamos! vamos!' (Let's go!) I was more than willing. We melted into the deep shadows and hurriedly left the village.
All that night we walked through the moon-drenched trail, none of us stopping for a much-needed rest. It had been a horrible and unforgettable experience. As dawn broke we finally stopped and took a short rest.
"En la noche, otra vez?' (Does the same thing happen again tonight?) I asked Taisha.
He nodded solemnly. 'Por dos mas noches' (For two more nights). 'Muy malo, Señora,' he added.
I nodded my head in agreement. I wondered if he knew that during the night I had seen his wife, Zutanqui, in the line of dancers and later lying on the ground with her arms wrapped around a naked Jivaro. Or if he cared.
*Obviously, written more than 50 years ago, this passage lacks the cultural sensitivity of modern ethnographic studies. Jane was not always above the common stereotypes of the time, which she sometimes exploited for dramatic effect. But Jane also had a deep and genuine affection for the native peoples she met and lived with. It is best to interpret a passage such as this as authentic observation transformed into high drama, exaggerated for maximum sensational effect.
From The Head with the Long Yellow Hair, London: Robert Hale, 1958, pp. 168-171.
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