Scalping

For other uses, see Scalping (disambiguation).

Native American Big Mouth Spring with decorated scalp lock on right shoulder. 1910 photograph by Edward S. Curtis

Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war. Eventually, the act became motivated primarily for financial reasons; people received payment per scalp they acquired.

Scalping is often associated with frontier warfare in North America, and was practiced by Native Americans, colonists, and frontiersmen across centuries of violent conflict. Some Mexican (e.g., Sonora and Chihuahua) and American territories (e.g., Arizona) paid bounties for enemy Native American scalps. Contrary to popular belief, scalping was far from universal amongst Native Americans.

Scythia

Scalping was practiced by the ancient Scythians of Eurasia. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote of the Scythians in 440 BC:

The Scythian soldier scrapes the scalp clean of flesh and softening it by rubbing between their hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth is proud of these scalps and hangs them from his bridle rein; the greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves cloaks by sewing a quantity of these scalps together.

Western Europe

Scalps were taken in wars between the Visigoths, the Franks, and the Anglo-Saxons in the 9th century, according to the writings of Abbé Emmanuel H. D. Domenech. His sources included the decalvare of the ancient Germans, the capillos et cutem detrahere of the code of the Visigoths, and the Annals of Flodoard.

North America

1890 photograph of Robert McGee, scalped as a child by Sioux Chief Little Turtle, in 1864.

Buffalo hunter Ralph Morrison was killed and scalped December 7, 1868, near Fort Dodge, Kansas, by Cheyennes. The photo is by William S. Soule. Officer is Lt Reade of the 3rd Infantry {left} and John O. Austin Chief of scouts at right.

Certain tribes of Native Americans practiced scalping, in some instances up until the 19th century. According to Haines and Steckel (2000), "Probably the most dramatic skeletal example of prehistoric violence in North America comes from the Crow Creek site in central South Dakota. Archaeological excavations revealed about 486 skeletons within a fortification ditch on the periphery of the habitation area. The site represents the Initial Coalescent period and dates to about 1325 A.D. P. Willey's analysis revealed that 90% of the individuals had cut marks characteristic of scalping."

In the 1710s and 1720s, the French colonial authorities engaged in frontier warfare with the Natchez people and the Meskwaki people.

By 1703, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was offering $60 for each native scalp. During Dummer's War (c. 1721–1725), British colonial authorities offered £100 per Indian scalp – which adjusted for inflation would be about US $20,000 (£14,000) in present-day money; explorer John Lovewell is known to have conducted scalp-hunting expeditions to gain this generous bounty. In response to repeated massacres of British families by the French and their native allies, Governor of Massachusetts William Shirley during King Georges War reluctantly issued a bounty for the scalps of Indian men, women, and children (1744).

During Father Le Loutre's War and the French and Indian War in Nova Scotia and Acadia, French colonists offered payments to Indians for British scalps. In 1749, British Governor Edward Cornwallis offered payment to New England Rangers for Indian scalps. Both the Mi'kmaq people and the British killed combatants and non-combatants (i.e., women, children and infants). During the French and Indian War, Governor of Nova Scotia Charles Lawrence also offered a reward for male Mi'kmaq scalps in 1756.

Indian Warrior with Scalp, 1789, by Barlow.

During the French and Indian War, Massachusetts was offering a bounty of 40 pounds (again, a unit of currency) for a male Indian scalp, and 20 pounds for scalps of females or of children under 12 years old. In 1756, Pennsylvania Governor Morris, in his Declaration of War against the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) people, offered "130 Pieces of Eight [a type of coin], for the Scalp of Every Male Indian Enemy, above the Age of Twelve Years," and "50 Pieces of Eight for the Scalp of Every Indian Woman, produced as evidence of their being killed."

In the American Revolutionary War, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor of Province of Quebec (1763-1791), was known by American Patriots as the "hair-buyer general" because they believed he encouraged and paid his Native American allies to scalp American settlers. When Hamilton was captured in the war by the colonists, he was treated as a war criminal instead of a prisoner of war because of this. However, American historians have conceded that there was no positive proof that he had ever offered rewards for scalps. It is now assumed that during the American Revolution, no British officer paid for scalps.

Supposedly, General Custer (who was known for his hair) was not scalped after the Battle of the Little Bighorn because he was deemed filthy in the eyes of the Sioux – to lay hands on him would sully the hands of the warrior.

Some scalping incidents even occurred during the American Civil War; for example, Confederate guerrillas lead by Bloody Bill Anderson were well known for decorating their saddles with the scalps of Union soldiers they had killed. Archie Clement had the reputation of being Anderson’s “chief scalper”.

In motion pictures, popular literature, and entertainment

The act of scalping featured prominently in some Westerns such as the 1966 Burt Reynolds spaghetti western Navajo Joe which opens with an Indian massacre in which a white profiteer scalps an Indian woman, and the 1990 film Dances with Wolves which shows Pawnee Indians with scalps hanging from their bow or lance and Timmons, the teamster is scalped after being ambushed by the Pawnee. The Cormac McCarthy novel Blood Meridian is about a group of mercenaries making a living off Indian scalps and references the activity extensively, and in Karl May's novels the character Sam Hawkins had been scalped by Indian warriors and survives. The first work in the Lonesome Dove series, Dead Man's Walk features a scalping, as does James Carlos Blake's In the Rogue Blood. Likewise, George Macdonald Fraser's antihero, Harry Flashman, observes scalping and is himself partially scalped in Flashman and the Redskins. Titus Bass, the protagonist of Terry Johnston’s nine historical novels about the Rocky Mountain fur trade, survives being scalped. Even the children's novel Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie features a description of a "Redskin" scalper: "In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress." Henry Frapp (Brian Keith) is scalped offscreen in the 1980 film The Mountain Men and survives the experience.

Stories that are not strictly Westerns but feature Native American characters or themes also deal with the practice. For example, the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper shows many acts of scalping throughout the film, notably in the battle-scenes between the Native Americans and European troops. In the 1994 film Legends of the Fall Tristan Ludlow (Brad Pitt) scalps many German soldiers in the First World War resulting in his discharge from army service.

The horror genre uses scalping as a violent and sensationalistic act, the most notorious depiction being a sequence in the 1981 slasher film Maniac, featuring shockingly realistic makeup effects by Tom Savini. Later examples include the 2002 film Deathwatch where Pte. Thomas Quinn (Andy Serkis) wears a vest made from German scalps and is seen scalping an executed prisoner in one scene; the 2009 World War II film Inglourious Basterds where American irregulars collect scalps of killed Wehrmacht servicemen, with orders from their commanding officer to collect 100 scalps each; the 2007 film Saw IV where a woman named Brenda is put into a scalping chair torture device; and the video game Gun where the player is able to scalp dying enemies after purchasing a special scalping knife.

One of the female victims in Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 film Salò is depicted being scalped during the film's courtyard torture scenes.

The difficulty and skill of scalping are themes of the Neil LaBute-directed Nurse Betty.

In the Australian soap opera Prisoner it's discovered that inmate Chrissie Latham killed an officer's husband so she gets scalped with a pair of scissors by another inmate, Bea Smith.

See also

• Pitchcapping
• Shrunken head

References

• Kelsey, Isabel, Joseph Brant 1743–1807 Man of Two Worlds, 1984, ISBN 0-8156-0182-4
• Axtell, James. "Scalps and Scalping" from Encyclopedia of North American Indians
• Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online: Henry Hamilton
• Grenier, John. The Far Reaches of Empire. War in Nova Scotia, 1710-1760. Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 2008.
• Grenier, John. The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier. Cambridge University Press. 2005

External links

• British Scalp Proclamation of 1756