week of 6/5/02
 
 
 

Evidence reveals long history of scalping techniques
By George Ellison
(Editor’s note: Readers should be cautioned that several of the descriptions of scalping and related practices presented in this article are graphic.)

This past Sunday afternoon I presented a program for the Macon County Friends of the Library on Cherokee lifestyles and beliefs during the pre-historic period and the origins of the Eastern Band of Cherokees. I wasn’t surprised that 70 or so people turned out; after all, the Macon County contingent is one of the strongest library support programs in the state, and the interest throughout the Smokies region in Cherokee history and culture is considerable.

Before the program, a woman asked if she could query me about Cherokee scalping practices. I could only reply that I had the sense that scalping was a long-standing practice in pre-historic era, and that it had continued to some extent into more recent times. I recalled that the northern press had accused Cherokee members of the Thomas Legion of scalping Union soldiers during the Civil War.

On the way home, I found myself thinking about the topic; indeed, it interested me enough that first thing the next morning, upon arriving in my office, I conducted a little research.

In this day and time, when you live in a somewhat remote mountain village like I do, where there is no research library within 30 miles, the Internet has become a prime reference tool. After that, one has recourse to whatever books have accumulated through the years in his or her personal library.

Sure enough, entering “scalping” in the Google search engine produced 32,000 hits. I looked at the first 30 or so. The overview that I found to be helpful was “An Analysis of Scalping Cases and Treatment of the Victims Corpses in Prehistoric North America” by Troy Case (www.dickshovel.com/scalp.html). Although this article is not dated, the references cited in the extensive bibliography indicate that it was written in the late 1990s.

“Although the origin of scalping in the New World is unknown, it was a widespread practice among Native American groups during the historic period,” Case writes. “... Archaeological evidence for the scalping custom in prehistoric North America (is evidenced) as either a characteristic lesion of the frontal and parietals indicating survival of a scalping event, or as a distinct pattern of cut marks in small, parallel clusters that encircled the skull.

“ ... There appears to have been little sexual bias in choosing which individuals would be scalped. Sex could be determined for 33 of the scalping victims considered here, and of these, roughly 40% were female, while 60% were male ... John Swanton states that among the Creeks (a tribe residing in Georgia and Alabama) the taking of a woman’s or child’s scalp was considered a sign of even greater valor than the taking of a scalp on the battlefield, because it indicated that the warrior had penetrated all the way into the enemy’s village, a feat which required great skill.

“Just as being a woman was no protection from scalping, being a child also appears not to have always been a deterrent to becoming a victim of this custom. The youngest prehistoric victim of scalping found in this study was a child between the ages of five and seven years (who) may have provided trophies in two different raids. The presence on the cranium of a characteristic scalping lesion with some bone remodeling indicates that the child survived an initial scalping event by at least two weeks before being killed in yet another raid. Obviously there was no scalp left on this child to take as a trophy, but both hands appear to have been removed by breaking the radii and ulnae toward their distal ends, and these hands were probably kept as trophies, along with the head of another individual from the site who was quite obviously decapitated.

“There is at least a suggestion ... that women who survived scalping were accepted back into their communities (while) there is no definite evidence of men surviving a scalping incident and continuing to live within their tribes .... (Among at least one tribe there was a practice) of shunning males who survived scalping and treating them as if they were ghosts or beings with supernatural powers ...”

In History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, the 19th century anthropologist James Mooney, who lived on the Qualla Boundary (present-day Cherokee) during the late 1880s, described the scalp dance: “This dance, common to every tribe east of the Rocky Mountains, was held to celebrate the taking of fresh scalps from the enemy. These scalps, painted red on the fleshy side, decorated and stretched in small hoops attached to the ends of poles, were carried in the dance by the wives and sweethearts of the warriors ... Among the Cherokee it was customary for the warrior as he stepped into the center of the circle to suggest to the drummer an improvised song which summed up in one or two words his own part in the encounter.”

The John Swanton cited above by Troy Case was the recognized authority on southeastern Indians during the first half of the 20th century. The authority for the last 30 years has been Charles Hudson, an anthropologist at the University of Georgia. In The Southeastern Indians (University of Tennessee Press, 1976), Hudson adds several details:

“Scalping was evidently an old practice in the Southeast ... If a man was killed, the attackers tried to get his scalp. They did this by cutting an incision around the head, usually with a small cane knife, and by placing their feet on the victim’s neck, they were able to pull off the scalp. Later the scalp was tied to a small hoop, painted red, and preserved.”

Here’s hoping the woman who asked about scalping reads this. It may be, I realize, a tad more about the topic than she really wanted to know.

George Ellison is a writer who lives in Bryson City. He wrote the biographical introductions for the reissues of two Appalachian classics: Horace Kephart’s Our Southern Highlanders and James Mooney’s History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Readers can contact him at P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, N.C. 28713, or at ellisongeorge@cs.com