Shrunken head heads of monkeys or sloths. Some even used goatskin. Kate Duncan wrote in 2001 that "It has been estimated that about 80 percent of the tsantsas in private and museum hands are fraudulent," including almost all that are female or which include an entire torso rather than just a head. Thor Heyerdahl recounts in "Kon-Tiki" (1947) the various problems of getting into the Jívaro (Shuar) area in Ecuador to get balsa wood for his expedition raft. Local people would not guide his team into the jungle for fear of being killed and having their heads shrunk. In 1951 and 1952
Tuamotuan language they were settled c. 700 AD by people from the Society Islands. Europeans first discovered the islands in 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan reached them while sailing across the Pacific Ocean. Subsequent explorers visited the islands over the centuries, including Thor Heyerdahl, the famous Norwegian ethnographer who sailed the Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947. The effects of early European visits were marginal as they had no political effects. The language, however, was ultimately affected by the Tahitian language, which was itself affected by European expansion. The eventual arrival of European missionaries in the 19th century also led to loanwords,