The Head of the Navigator was the dismembered head of a navigator who previously sailed with Captain Dread.
They had gone to Monkey Island but were captured by cannibals. Dread managed to escape but all he found of his friend was an eyeball "that has seen the world" which he put in a necklace.
Guybrush Threepwood obtained the head from the Monkey Island Cannibals. The head was used by Guybrush to navigate the lava maze underneath the Giant Monkey Head. Threepwood then had to persuade it to give him the eyeball necklace that would make him invisible to ghosts.
Trivia[]
- During Ron Gilbert's 2017 game "Thimbleweed Park", the player finds a cursed severed head in a Voodoo Ladies shop. The inventory icon is a low-resolution Head of the Navigator. If you attempt to Use the Head, it spins around in your inventory using a similar animation to when the Head of the Navigator points the way to Lechuck's Ship in Monkey Island 1. Looking at its name tag reveals the name, "Sepp the Navigator".
- Dread mentions his and the Navigator's backstory in Monkey Island 2, and although his reference is vague ("this legendary island"), it is an obvious reference to the severed Head from The Secret of Monkey Island. However it is not certain that the severed head belonged to Dread's friend, as, although Dread mentions he kept his friend's eyeball, the severed head has both his eyes. This contradiction isn't explained, unless we suppose that Dread was referring to an eyeball from the necklace, or that the Cannibals replaced the eyeballs on the skull.