SCALPING IN AMERICA. 425 



he was also present at the reception of the returning victors, laden 

 Avith scalps, at Tadoussac. As the flotilla of canoes neared the settle- 

 ment, the women threw off their clothing and swam to the boats, 

 where with cries of triumph they took the scalps into their care. 

 Then followed other festivities and dances, and toward the last 

 Champlain himself Avas presented with a scalp. 



After Champlain the reports concerning scalping are very fre- 

 quent. 



II. 



GEOGRAPHICAL AND CHRONOLOGICAL EXTENSION OF SCALPING DEVELOP- 



MENT OF THE SCALP FROM THE HEAD TROPHY REMARKS ON HAND 



EAR, AND FINGER TROPHIES. 



Scalping in its commonly known form and greatest extent was, as 

 will be shown later, largely the result of the influence of white people, 

 who introduced firearms, Avhich increased the fatalities in a conflict, 

 brought the steel knife, facilitating the taking of the scalp, and 

 finally offered scalp premiums, which so stimulated the hunt for these 

 objects that the removing of whole heads was abandoned. It is cer- 

 tain that head taking preceded scalp taking and that the latter was 

 a development from the former, induced by the inconvenience and 

 other difficulties which attended carrying off the whole head. This is 

 not merely a rational deduction from facts, but is confirmed in some 

 of the old reports and by the Indians themselves, and is a logical con- 

 sequence of the conception common among the Indians and many 

 other primitive peoples that a part of the boch^ may be equivalent 

 to and completely represent the whole. If an eneni}^ is killed or 

 their own warrior dies near a settlement, then the whole body is 

 brought over, to be maltreated to satiation in the first or receive the 

 proper honors in the second instance. If the distance from home is 

 greater, the body is cut into pieces that can be transported, or, if even 

 this would be attended with difficulty, only the head and possibly 

 a hand are brought in ; while under still greater difficulties of trans- 

 portation it is the jaw alone that is brought, or more commonly the 

 scaljD. This shows the signification of the scalp lock. In cases where 

 a scalp had been taken and the head was cut off subsequently, we 

 are confronted with a case of mutilation ; such a head was never 

 regarded as a trophy, but was maltreated and thrown away. This 

 briefly sketched development of the practice of scalping can be fol- 

 lowed especially well among the Algonquin. 



Very good evidence for the assumption that the scalp trophy was 

 a develojjment of the head trophy and that the Indians were origi- 

 nally all head-hunters, is afforded by the native pictography. In this 

 the scalped bodies are always represented headless. 



