SCALPING IN AMERICA." 



By Georg Friederici. 



The habit among the American aborigines of scalping fallen ene- 

 mies, and of carrying off the secured piece of skin and hair as a 

 trophy, was a wholly new sight to the early American voj'agers and 

 settlers. The first edition of Herodotus, with his account of scalping 

 among the Scythians, appeared in 1502 and was accessible to a few of 

 the learned only, and ethnological information concerning other 

 primitive races was wanting. 



The word scalp is English and originally signified a shell or 

 the crown of the head. Its use in the present sense is quite recent; 

 even well toward the end of the seventeenth centurj^ one reads only 

 of " skynnes with the heades and crownes," " cut off their haire round 

 about," " skins of those heads," " haire skulls of his enemies," " the 

 skin of their heads flayed off," " crowns, or haire and skinne of the 

 head," and similar terms. In 1675, however, Josselyn employed 

 " the hair-scalp," and since then the term came gradually into gen- 

 eral use. In the beginning of the eighteenth century Lawson and 

 Byrd used simply scalp, or sculp. In French, German, and Dutch 

 writings the evolution of the term progressed also very slo\vly. 



So far as the author could ascertain, it was Francisco de Garay 

 who, in 1520, made the first acquaintance with the Indian habit of 

 scalping. This occurred during De Garay's unfortunate expedition 

 to Panuco. The accounts are, however, so brief and the procedure 

 was so little characteristic that only an extended knowledge of the 

 custom enables one to recognize a mode of scalping. It consisted in 

 this particular case in cutting off the skin of the entire head and 



a Scalpieren und jlbnliche Kriegsgebrauche in Amerika. Inaugural-Disserta- 

 tion zur Erlangung der Dolitorwiirde der Pljilosophischen Falcultat der Uni- 

 versitiit Leipzig. Vorgelet von Georg Friederici. Braunscliweig, Druclc von 

 Friedrich Yieweg und Sohn, 1906. Octavo, pp. vi, 1-172, with colored map, 

 folded. Abstract, with the author's permission, of pages 1 to 76. For detailed 

 bibliograpliy see the original. 



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