Scalping
[6] Herodotus related that Scythian warriors would behead the enemies they defeated in battle and present the heads to their king to claim their share of the plunder.
[10] In England in 1036, Earl Godwin, father of Harold Godwinson, was reportedly responsible for scalping his enemies, among whom was Alfred Aetheling.
[11] In 1845, mercenary John Duncan observed what he estimated to be 700 scalps taken in warfare and displayed as trophies by a contingent of female soldiers—Dahomey Amazons—employed by the King of Dahomey (present-day Republic of Benin).
Although Duncan travelled widely in Dahomey, and described customs such as the taking of heads and the retention of skulls as trophies, nowhere else does he mention scalping.
[12][13] Occasional instances of scalping of dead Axis troops by Allied military personnel are known from World War II.
One particularly widely reported, although disputed, case involves that of German general Friedrich Kussin, the commandant of the town of Arnhem who was ambushed and killed by British paratroopers in the early stages of Operation Market Garden.
[18][19] Scalping in the Americas predominantly arose from the practices of Native American tribes, and was later copied by European colonists on the continent.
The earliest instruments used in scalping were stone knives crafted of flint, chert, or obsidian, or other materials like reeds or oyster shells that could be worked to carry an edge equal to the task.
Collectively, such tools were also used for a variety of everyday tasks like skinning and processing game, but were replaced by metal knives acquired in trade through European contact.
[25] Officials in the English colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts offered bounties for the heads of killed Indians, and later for just their scalps during the Pequot War.
[31] In 1643, the Iroquois attacked a group of Wyandot fur traders and French carpenters near Montreal, killing and scalping three Frenchmen.
[31] In 1697, on the northern frontier of Massachusetts colony, white settler Hannah Duston killed ten of her Abenaki captors during her nighttime escape, presented their ten scalps to the Massachusetts General Court and was rewarded with bounties for two men, two women, and six children, even though colonial authorities had rescinded the law authorizing scalp bounties six months earlier.
Early frontier warfare in forested areas in the era of flintlock muzzle-loading rifles favored tomahawks and knives over firearms because of the long loading time after a shot was fired.
The September 13, 1779 journal entry of American Lieutenant William Barton recounted how U.S. troops scalped Native dead during the Sullivan Expedition.
[49] Harris Worcester wrote: "The new policy attracted a diverse group of men, including Anglos, runaway slaves led by Seminole John Horse, and Indians — Kirker used Delawares and Shawnees; others, such as Terrazas, used Tarahumaras; and Seminole chief Coacoochee led a band of his own people who had fled from Indian Territory.
For example, Confederate guerrillas led by "Bloody Bill" Anderson were well known for decorating their saddles with the scalps of Union soldiers they had killed.
[54] This attack targeted Native communities specifically, in the villages of Yana, Konkow, Nisenan, Wintu, Nomlaki, Patwin, Yuki, and Maidu.
The article noted this behavior was "sanctioned" by the U.S. federal government, and was modeled on patterns the U.S. had begun a century earlier in the "American East".
[61]: 206 From one writer's point of view, it was a "uniquely American" innovation that the use of scalp bounties in the wars against indigenous societies "became an indiscriminate killing process that deliberately targeted Indian non-combatants (including women, children, and infants), as well as warriors.
