Tribal Headhunters on Coney Island? Author Revisits Disturbing American Tale

You write that these zoos fulfilled a need for sensation and an ethnological obsession. Those needs don't seem unique to the 1900s. I kept thinking about reality television.

I don't think the display can really be considered authentic. The traditional ceremonies performed before head hunts and the other tribal dances—those were generally rare in real Igorrote life. Same with the eating of dogs. These things were ceremonial and so definitely didn't occur every day. But Truman wasn't bothered by authenticity. They were t

But the zoo quickly came to be seen as shameful, and something Americans didn't want to remember, that people were exhibited in this manner, so it was forgotten.