JOHNNY AND THE TSANTSA

For years it was a fantasy of mine to be a guest on the Tonight Show.

I was writing a book entitled The Adventurer’s Guide, and I fantasized I would appear on the show promoting the book by showing Johnny Carson a tsantsa, a human shrunken head.

This fantasy came true on November 16, 1976. I found myself standing behind that famous multi-colored curtain, holding a small black box, and hearing Carson introducing me.

Perhaps professional entertainers would not be nervous behind that curtain, but I was almost paralyzed. That old Chinese warning to be careful for what you wish for, as it might come true, hit me hard.

So when the curtain parted and I stepped out into the lights, it was in a total daze that I found myself in that chair sitting next to Johnny Carson with 20 million people watching. And with one brief look by Carson into my eyes, the daze was gone.

Somehow I felt comfortable and relaxed. Somehow those 20 million people weren’t there, and it was just me and this friendly fellow having a conversation. Johnny Carson had this almost magical ability to put you at ease – on national television.

He held up my book and we talked about it, then he asked me what’s in the box. I took out the tsantsa and handed it to him. He hesitated, so I told him, “It’s OK, it won’t bite you.”

As he held it, I explained that it was given to me by the man who made it: Tangamashi, the chief, or curaka, of the clan of Shuara Jivaros I lived with for a summer when I was 16. The Jivaros are in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador, and are the only tribe in the world that shrinks the heads of their enemies killed in battle.

Actually it’s the headskin they shrink – the skull they throw away. I described the process and the rationale: shrinking the home of the enemy’s soul shrinks it’s capacity for ghostly revenge.

“Weren’t you a little worried about your own head?” Carson asked me. “Not at all,” I replied, “because they knew I’m not a part of their religion and would not know how to curse them with sorcery. The headhunters hunt each others’ heads, not yours or mine.”

Carson gave one of his famous looks of eye-rolling dubiousness that convulsed the audience in laughter.

“Yeah, sure,” I admitted, “there’s a risk. How can you have an adventure without it? The Adventurer’s Guide is about having real adventures, not some travel club ‘Acapulco Adventure.’ Living with headhunters is a real adventure – and my book is dedicated to showing people how they can have real adventure in their lives.”

That was a long time ago – but it doesn’t seem that way. Life lasts a snap of the finger. We only get one crack at life on this earth. In 1976, there were no adventure travel companies. Now they are legion. The opportunity for you, for anyone, to experience the thrill of adventure is greater than ever.

There was a television commercial a couple of years ago for a product I forget. What I remember was a collage of quick shots showing people doing cool things all over the world, with the announcer saying, “Every place on earth has been explored.” He paused, the collage ended, then came the punchline: “But not by you.”

It’s the adventures of your life, not someone else’s that matter – matter to you. Those will be the memories that count – to you.

Our world is a place of endless wonder. If you lived to be a thousand years old, you couldn’t experience and learn all there is. There’s a cliche that always irks me: The world is getting smaller.

This should be the opposite of the truth, which is: The world is continually getting bigger. You know that famous quote, “The more I know, the less I know”? Well, the more of the world you see, the less you see in the same way.

The world should always be expanding for you. You go someplace you’ve never been, and before it was just a dot on the map – now it becomes huge as you travel around it, and you discover how much more there is to experience and learn that you had no idea about until you got there.

I believe that within almost everyone there is a dream of adventure – a dream of doing something truly memorable, thrilling, and special.

Johnny Carson gave me the opportunity to provide encouragement to people so they could fulfill that dream. As millions of Americans commemorate his passing, I’d like to renew that opportunity, and encourage you to get out into the world and follow whatever dream there is inside you.

We are all have this extraordinary gift of life. All of us have the capacity to make of that life a thrilling adventure.