Post by Robert Braun on Dec 11, 2002 12:38:51 GMT -5
When search for references regarding practice of scalping, one frequently finds passages like the following:
ct.essortment.com/historyscalpin_rdrp.htm
Title: The history of Indian and European scalping
Copyright 2002 by PageWise, Inc.
How did the Indians start scalping their victims? Very simply, they learned it from the European settlers. A few Indian tribes had practiced scalping to a very limited extent before the Europeans arrived.
More often than not, scalping was practiced as a response in kind. The Eurpoeans had taught them, first hand, the horror of viewing the mutilated remains of their families and friends after an attack by white settlers. By inflicting the same mutilation on their enemies they had hoped to stem the onslaught of these white settlers that were invading their land. To some Indians, if the attacks could not stop the whites, at least it would send the message that they were prepared to be as unscrupulous as the Europeans. The Iroquois in particular, used scalping to this purpose...
Compare the passage you just read to the following, from
college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_034800_scalpsandsca.htm
Scalps and Scalping
Before the 1960s most Americans believed that scalping was a distinctive military custom of the American Indians. History books and the popular media all attributed scalping to Indians, who collected the scalplocks of enemies as war trophies and proof of their valor in battle.
But with the advent of the Red Power and other countercultural movements in the 1960s, many people, Indians and non-Indians alike, began to argue that Native Americans had never scalped until they were taught and encouraged to do so by European colonists, who offered them monetary bounties for the scalps of the settlers' enemies. Since this new version of Indian history sounded plausible and suited the anti-Establishment tenor of the times, it was quickly adopted by many as conventional wisdom.
To be accurate, however, we must acknowledge the following. First, the only non-Indians known to have scalped their enemies were the Scythians, nomadic Eurasian peoples who flourished from the eighth to the fourth century b.c. The ancient Greeks regarded them as "barbarians" for their practice of making napkins from head scalps and for decorating their persons and their horses' bridles with them. When Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wished to terrorize their enemies, rather than scalping the dead they decapitated them and mounted the heads in prominent places, a practice they continued in America.
Second, there is no evidence that colonial officials ever taught their Indian allies to take scalps. In the seventeenth century, European traders did introduce to native markets so-called scalping knives. But these were ordinary, all-purpose butcher knives, which the natives used more for cutting meat, wood, and skins than for lifting scalps. They were bought by Indian women as well as men because they were more durable and held an edge longer than knives of flint, reed, or shell.
Finally, while there is no evidence for European knowledge of scalping before the arrival of Europeans in the New World, we have abundant evidence that scalping took place in native America well before Europeans arrived. There are four different kinds of evidence, the best of which is archaeological. Two kinds of skulls from precontact sites east and west of the Mississippi, from as early as 2500 to 500 b.c. right up to contact, provide evidence of scalping. The majority of these skulls exhibit circular or successive cuts or scratches just where scalps were traditionally lifted. Some tribes took only a small patch of skin attached to a male victim's specially braided and decorated scalplock at the hair's whorl or vertex, which left little mark on the skull. But many tribes took larger scalps, sometimes from the middle of the forehead or hairline all the way back to the neck, with or without the ears...
ct.essortment.com/historyscalpin_rdrp.htm
Title: The history of Indian and European scalping
Copyright 2002 by PageWise, Inc.
How did the Indians start scalping their victims? Very simply, they learned it from the European settlers. A few Indian tribes had practiced scalping to a very limited extent before the Europeans arrived.
More often than not, scalping was practiced as a response in kind. The Eurpoeans had taught them, first hand, the horror of viewing the mutilated remains of their families and friends after an attack by white settlers. By inflicting the same mutilation on their enemies they had hoped to stem the onslaught of these white settlers that were invading their land. To some Indians, if the attacks could not stop the whites, at least it would send the message that they were prepared to be as unscrupulous as the Europeans. The Iroquois in particular, used scalping to this purpose...
Compare the passage you just read to the following, from
college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_034800_scalpsandsca.htm
Scalps and Scalping
Before the 1960s most Americans believed that scalping was a distinctive military custom of the American Indians. History books and the popular media all attributed scalping to Indians, who collected the scalplocks of enemies as war trophies and proof of their valor in battle.
But with the advent of the Red Power and other countercultural movements in the 1960s, many people, Indians and non-Indians alike, began to argue that Native Americans had never scalped until they were taught and encouraged to do so by European colonists, who offered them monetary bounties for the scalps of the settlers' enemies. Since this new version of Indian history sounded plausible and suited the anti-Establishment tenor of the times, it was quickly adopted by many as conventional wisdom.
To be accurate, however, we must acknowledge the following. First, the only non-Indians known to have scalped their enemies were the Scythians, nomadic Eurasian peoples who flourished from the eighth to the fourth century b.c. The ancient Greeks regarded them as "barbarians" for their practice of making napkins from head scalps and for decorating their persons and their horses' bridles with them. When Europeans of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wished to terrorize their enemies, rather than scalping the dead they decapitated them and mounted the heads in prominent places, a practice they continued in America.
Second, there is no evidence that colonial officials ever taught their Indian allies to take scalps. In the seventeenth century, European traders did introduce to native markets so-called scalping knives. But these were ordinary, all-purpose butcher knives, which the natives used more for cutting meat, wood, and skins than for lifting scalps. They were bought by Indian women as well as men because they were more durable and held an edge longer than knives of flint, reed, or shell.
Finally, while there is no evidence for European knowledge of scalping before the arrival of Europeans in the New World, we have abundant evidence that scalping took place in native America well before Europeans arrived. There are four different kinds of evidence, the best of which is archaeological. Two kinds of skulls from precontact sites east and west of the Mississippi, from as early as 2500 to 500 b.c. right up to contact, provide evidence of scalping. The majority of these skulls exhibit circular or successive cuts or scratches just where scalps were traditionally lifted. Some tribes took only a small patch of skin attached to a male victim's specially braided and decorated scalplock at the hair's whorl or vertex, which left little mark on the skull. But many tribes took larger scalps, sometimes from the middle of the forehead or hairline all the way back to the neck, with or without the ears...