Os europeos referíronse historicamente ós shuar como xívaros, un termo que probablemente deriva da pronuncia española do século XVI da verba "shuar", pero que adquiriu outros significados como o de "salvaxe". Os shuar foron moi representados na literatura por mor da fascinación occidental pola antiga práctica da redución de testas (tsantsa).
↑Como demostrou Claude Lévi-Strauss, moitos pobos indíxenas chámanse a si mesmo "pobo" ou "humano", designando ós outros como "bárbaros" ou sinxelamente "outros."
Gnerre, Maurizio (1973). "Sources of Spanish Jívaro", in Romance Philology 27(2): 203-204. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Harner, Michael J. (1984). Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN0-520-05065-7
Karsten, Rafael (1935). The head-hunters of Western Amazonas: The life and culture of the Jibaro Indians of eastern Ecuador and Peru ([Finska vetenskaps-societeten, Helsingfors] Commentationes humanarum litterarum. VII. 1 Washington, D.C. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletins. ASIN B00085ZPFM
Mader, Elke (1999). Metamorfosis del poder: Persona, mito y visión en la sociedad Shuar y Achuar. Abya-Yala. ISBN9978-04-477-9
Rubenstein, Steven (2006). "Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads" in Cultural Anthropology 22(3): 357-399.
Rubenstein, Steven (2002). Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN0-8032-8988-XGoogle Books
Rubenstein, Steven (2001). "Colonialism, the Shuar Federation, and the Ecuadorian State," in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 19(3): 263-293.
Lowell, Karen (1994). "Ethnopharmacological Studies of Medicinal Plants, particularly Cyperus species, used by the Shuar Indians" Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois Health Science Center, Chicago, Illinois, 420 pp.