48 [So] TRANS. ST. I.OUIS ACAD. SCIENCE. 



Central and Southern Californians. The Uta Indians remove 

 only a small patch of skin from over the left ear of the conquered 

 enemy. The Eastern Indians practiced scalping from the earliest 

 historical period, for Rene de Laudonniere noticed in 1564 the 

 smoking and drying of scalps by the savages of Northeastern 

 Florida, about the mouth of St. John's river. Each tribe pretends 

 to have adopted this custom from some other tribe once engaged 

 in warfare with them. The Creeks took it, as they s ly, from a 

 northern tribe, and possess a Creek word for the scalp, ika ha'lpi, 

 "his head's skin" ; and another term, said to be of foreign origin, 

 tiwa, hair. The reason why they assign a foreign origin to this 

 practice adopted by themselves, is the same as the one given by 

 anthropophagic nations for denying the eating of human flesh. 



A tradition of the older people relates, that, to prove their suc- 

 cess before their fellow-warriors, the Creeks first cut oft' the hands 

 of the slain as trophies ; but the hands were, while being carrieil 

 off", clinging to bushes and trees, and so they exchanged that cus- 

 tom for that of taking scalps. By a ligament oa the top of the 

 head the scalp is fastened more firmly than on other portions 

 of the head, and that sinew had to be severed by the knife. The 

 one who struck the hostile warrior first did not always obtain the 

 scalp, but the one who took oft' the scalp often had the honor of 

 the killmg ; at other times all the men present were credited with 

 the deed. A war-whoop, uttered when scalping, was the fol- 

 lowing : 



Hdyu midshaA'an std ! 



The words are not Creek ; but their meaning is said to be, "that's 

 the way to do !" Another utterance proferred in the act of scalp- 

 ing, was 



Wopopo pa ! wapopo pa I 



which is evidently interjectional, and therefore meaningless. 



The pole, which the four rivalizing tribes endeavored to cover 

 up with scalps taken from the enemy, seems to have been differ- 

 ent from the atasi, but probably of the same length. If so, Tchi- 

 killi probably used another term than piikabi to designate it. The 

 atasi still exists in many different forms in the western tribes, as 

 Sioux, Saks and Foxes, etc. The Otoes call it na" pasda, and it 

 is made of the hardest wood obtainable. 



