Do you want to know what the scalp is?

What is a scalp? Most often this question interests those who read books about Indians. There is nothing surprising. After all, they often tell that the Indian wars during the battle take a scalp from a man as a proof of his own courage.

Why this is necessary

It turns out that these trophies were in high esteem even among the ancient Gauls and Scythians. So, what is a scalp? This is the scalp cut from the skull with the hair. The Indian tribes of North America did this not only to humiliate the enemy. The scalp was a magical attribute. He decorated the shield war and was a necessary attribute of military celebration.

It is possible and for money

In the 18th century, Americans did not ask themselves what the scalp was. They knew perfectly well how the Indians removed it from their heads, and even contrived to use it for their own purposes. They assigned a reward for each scalp taken from members of neighboring tribes. Therefore, in pursuit of profit, the Indians helped the colonists destroy their own kind. And they did it themselves. Even women and children were not spared.

Process description

Learning what the scalp is, I want to understand how you can take it off a person. Of course, most often it was done with the deceased. But sometimes scalping and living people. The Indian took the hair of his victim in his hands, then with a knife he cut the skin in a circle from the forehead to the back of the head. Then, resting on the shoulders of the unhappy man, he pulled the skin together with his hair, like a stocking, from the back of his neck. A living person suffered from this painful pain, from which he could lose consciousness or even die, but sometimes such people survived. After such execution on a head scars remained, and hair did not grow any more.

What's Next

What was done with this skin, which was surely covered with fresh blood? An Indian warrior, if there was no pursuit behind him, made a stop to process his trophy. He used a knife to scrape off the remains of the flesh from the scalp. Then he washed it and pulled it on a special construction from the branches to dry it. Then he hung to his shield and went to the village. On approach to his home, he made loud cries as many times as the scalps hung on his shield. The more trophies there were, the more fortunate the warrior was.

Lucky not to everyone

Victims of the Indians became not only white people, but also members of neighboring tribes. If such victims survived, then in some tribes they were considered outcasts and lived as hermits until death. Scalpated are not just embarrassed by their appearance. According to the Indian beliefs, they were considered not living people, but living dead. Therefore, they avoided. They lived in caves and left only at night. Indians did not remove scalps from blacks and those who committed suicide.

It's good that this barbarous tradition is a thing of the past. It is better to find out what scalp is, for informational purposes, than to see it in reality.