Indian Scalping, Essay Example

In the Colonial Wars the English used the Indians as part of their campaign tactics ” the English offered their troops a bounty of 200 pounds for the scalp of the chief of the Delaware tribe, Shinngass. This was 25 times the price that they offered their Indian allies for the scalp of a French soldier.” (Anon)

The paper examines how scalping was introduced to the North American continent. The influence of the European colonists and how the act was performed.  It examines the historical context and how this changed with subsequent European intervention.

Scalps were taken from the heads of the enemy. The procedure being to remove the hair and skin tissue by means of a sharp knife or blade.  In most cases the Indians removed scalps when the victims were already dead. Other tribes such as the Sioux would scalp the victims alive.  The head pieces were held as trophies.  They were considered an honour and part of ritual sacrifice in achieving status as a warrior.  In 1563 it was the Frenchman Jacques Le Moyne who experienced a terrible display of Scalping in Florida.  He described it as ”  They carried slips of reeds, sharper than any steel blade … they cut the skin of the head down to the bone from front to back and all the way around and pulled it off while the hair, more than a foot and a half long, was still attached to it. When they had done this, they dug a hole in the ground and made a fire, kindling it with a piece of smouldering ember. … Over the fire they dried the scalps until they looked like parchment. … They hung the bones and the scalps at the ends of their spears, carrying them home in triumph.” (Axtell).

Although there is no doubt that Scalping took place in Europe before the Europeans discovered the Americas; equally there is ample evidence to depict this taking place within the Indian Tribes long before the arrival of the Europeans. The practice in Europe was more akin to taking heads and impaling them on poles.  This proved to be impractical in the Americas and it was deemed more efficient to obtain Scalps.  The French, Dutch and British did this with great vigour and subsequently this was more widely adopted by the Indian Tribes.  In the time of the American revolutionary wars it was particularly adopted by the Mohican and Iroquois Tribes and it earnt them fierce reputations of brutality.  Although only the Sioux Indian tribes were mainly noted for taking live scalps

There have been numerous eye witness accounts of  indian scalpings and some of these more grotesque accounts have been captured in the works of James Axtell and William C Strutrevent:

• ” killers of one “removed his head (cabeza), or rather all around his skull (todo el casco en redondo)-it is unknown with what skill they removed it with such great ease-and carried it off as evidence of their deed” ;
• “and they cut off the crown (la corona) of each Spaniard, which was what they valued most, in order to carry it on the limb of the bow they fought with” ;
• ” It was the custom of the Indians to flay the head of the enemy dead, and to hang the resulting skin and locks (pellejo y cabellos) insultingly on that pole. There were many dead, and the pole was covered with locks.” (Axtell and Sturtevant, The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping).

Oddly enough it is the Europeans who became the best advocates for the Indians in acts of Scalping. This was evident in a number of important witnesses testaments.  Consider that of Alvin M Josephy junior at the Nebraska Trials  “scalping was not originated by Indians. Poachers in England had their ears cut off. Europeans had the habit of taking parts of the body in war.  The Dutch gave rewards for Indian heads even before there was open warfare in their area of colonization.”  and  Peter Farbs testimony ” “Indian heads were put on pikes there very early, but people got tired of lugging in the heads so soon they just brought in the scalp to show that they had killed an Indian.” (Axtell and Sturtevant, The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping).

The practice of scalping continued throughout the American revolutionary wars and the British and French used Indian Tribes to perpetuate this practice. One British Colonel Henry Hamilton earned himself the scornful  title of ” Hair Buyer” as he used Indians to take scalps of the enemies which he paid a bounty on.  The practice of scalping continued on into the war of 1812 and did not cease until the end of the plains wars in the late nineteenth century. ” Only the Teton Dakota regarded killing and scalping as the coup of highest worth. The Chiricahua Apache saw the taking of an enemy’s scalp as disgusting, and declined the practice.” (Owens)

There were numerous accounts of people surviving the horrors of scalping and they were left with mutilated heads and disfigured skulls as a result of the ordeal.  Some Indian tribes did not kill but preferred the concept of hand to hand combat and defeating the opponent by the art of touching or taking a sample of scalp here as a mark of a warrior.  Often people survived this type of ordeal as opposed to situations where full scalping occurred.

One of the terrible things about the bounty system introduced for scalps was that it was almost impossible to distinguish between the person killed; be it man, woman or child.

There have been some amazing real live stories on scalping incidents and two such incidents are useful to cite by way of comparison.  The first for the bravery. courage and  resilience of a soldier and the second almost humorous saga who was scalped whilst being drunk. The first of these tales relates to that of Lt Peter Wooster in 1758 and an incident that occurred near Fort Anne NY.. “Lieutenant Wooster of the Connecticut Forces, who was wounded in Rogers’ skirmish, is yet alive and likely to recover, no pains being spared to effect it, as the surgeons are extremely fond of making a cure of so extraordinary a case, which is this, he being in the front with Major Putnam, or not far in his rear, the enemy fired upon him, 8 bullets lodged in him, 3 of which are taken out; he had also three wounds by a tomahawk, two of which were on his head, and the other in his elbow, his head was flayed, almost the hair part off. ” ” (Brey).

The second  incident occurred in Oswego NY ..  ” In May, 1756, French allied Indians skulked about the forts to inflict what casualties they could. Stephen Cross, a shipbuilder from Massachusetts, records on May 25th that “one of our soldiers came in from the edge of the woods, where it seems he had lain all night having been out on the evening party the day before and got drunk and could not get in, and not being missed, but on seeing him found he had lost his scalp, but he could not tell how nor when, having no others around. We supposed the Indians had stumbled over him in the dark, and supposed him dead, and taken off his scalp.” Patrick Mackeller also mentioned the incident in his journal and added “he afterwards recovered.”

The aspect of using scalps as trophies is best depicted by a French Artist in 1666 where he illustrates Iroquois Indians where one of the Indians is seen to have two scalps prominently displayed on the end of a pole, one female and the other male.  In 1700 another French artist produced a diagram of an Indian hut that had scalps displayed all around it.  Scalp locks were also displayed as ornaments on natives heads, often after being painted.  Of particular interest is that most of these drawings from French Artists came from widely dispersed geographical areas and tribes.  This would seem to indicate that the practice of scalping had been widely adopted in North America long before the arrival of the Europeans.  It is possible that the occupying forces saw Indians practice this ritual and merely adopted the practice to suit their own purposes. The concept of meeting barbarism with barbarism, only caused the situation to be inflamed and subsequently bring out the worst traits of the Indian tribes.

The concept of bounties was almost surely responsible for contributing to the spread of scalping amongst the other tribes.  William Wood stated that in some cases Scalping practices was an improvement amongst the New England Tribes as this was far less severe than that of previous practices ” “to cut off their [foes’] heads, hands, and feete, to beare home to their wives and children,  as true tokens of their renowned victories”  (Brey)

The early colonists and foreign armies were a fairly savage bunch themselves.  They did not respect their Christian teachings and equally matched the brutality of those they deemed to be savages.  This was particularly evidenced how they turned brother against brother. By getting friendly Indian tribes to kill off those Indians who were not cooperative with the new occupiers.

It has been intimated that early Iroquois and Mohawks practiced cannibalism but in general terms native Indians of North America did not indulge in this practice.  This is not true of the native population in South America where it is held that the Aztecs conducted rituals that did involve acts of cannibalism.  The Algonquin Indians referred to the Mohawk tribe as “Man-Eaters” but the two despised one another and there is no real hard evidence to substantiate this.  On the other hand the Anasazi tribe have been proven to indulge in these acts. Anthropologists have discovered human remains and bones where there is evidence of the skin being sucked off.  This evidence has been contested though, given the fact that anthropologists have reviewed hundreds of other sites and produced little tangible evidence of cannibalism amongst the native tribes.

At the time of European entry to the Americas there were some 1200+ native Indian tribes recorded.  Of these there was no evidence of cannibalism amongst the tribes.  This does not mean that there were not isolated incidents of this happening but in general terms this was not something practiced by the general natives tribes of the land.  It was also important to note the spiritual beliefs of the larger Indian tribes.  The Sioux viewed cannibalism as a sin, the Cree tribe viewed it as a form of mental illness and the Algonquin and Obijwe believed it to be the work of evil spirits.  There was a legend that stated the Cherokee tribe indulged in cannibalism feeding off the bodies of dead enemies, particularly in harsh winters when food was scarce. There appears no anthropological evidence to support this and hence the myth or stuff of legends.  Often these stories came about by rival tribes who wanted the European settlers to despise their enemies but in reality there seems little truth in these stories.

In 1768 a Spanish priest told of a native tribe of Indians along the coast of Texas indulging in cannibalism ” In 1768, a Spanish priest wrote an account of seeing the Karankawa hold a flesh eating ceremony. He said they would tie a live captive enemy to a stake and then begin cutting off pieces of their flesh. They would then cook the flesh and eat it in front of the captive. According to the priest, the Karankawa believed that eating the meat of their enemies would transfer power and strength to them.”  (Voelker)

Works Cited

Anon. The history of Indian and European scalping. 2009. 12 11 2009 <http://www.essortment.com/all/historyscalpin_rdrp.htm>.

Axtell, James and William C. Sturtevant. “The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping.” Axtell, James and William C. Sturtevant. The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping. William and Mary Quarterly, 1980. 451-472.

Axtell, James. Who Invented Scalping? 4 2007. 12 11 2009 <http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1977/3/1977_3_96.shtml>.

Brey, George. Scalping During the. 7 1998. 11 12 2009 <http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/1998/scalping.html>.

Owens, Robert M. Scalping Dictionary of American History. 12 11 2009. 12 11 2009 <Only the Teton Dakota regarded killing and scalping as the coup of highest worth. The Chiricahua Apache saw the taking of an enemy’s scalp as disgusting, and declined the practice.>.

Voelker, Melissa. About Karankawa Cannibalism. 2009. 12 11 2009 <http://www.ehow.com/about_4566787_karankawa-cannibalism.html>.