Mo Pygmy was abducted from his native New Guinea in 1936 by a group of entrepreneurs looking for film locations to shoot the movie "King Kong". Brought back to America for display, the headhunter was provided with a Moe Howard hairdo and labeled a "pygmy" in the interest of ticket sales. He was quickly subdued with cigarettes and alcohol, which rendered him docile and cooperative.

In 1942 he was recruited by the U.S. Army to fight the Japanese in New Guinea and received the Congressional Medal of Honor for Valor when he single handedly killed a squadron of Japanese scouts in the hinterlands of Indonesia, using only a blowgun. During the ceremony at the White House he presented President Roosevelt with their shrunken heads