428 SCALPING IN AMERICA. 



ing was again found. These Algonquin were separated from those 

 speaking the same language farther north by tribes speaking Iroquois 

 and Avho practiced scalping, and the habit was also met with on the 

 lower Delaware. 



The great mass of the more western Algonquin became known to 

 the whites much later and the custom of scalping was found among 

 them fully developed. Notwithstanding this the old habit of cut- 

 ting off the entire head cropped out here and there on favorable occa- 

 sions; this was particularly the case at the siege of Detroit by the 

 associated tribes under Pontiac. Finally, what has been said of the 

 central Algonquin is also true of their relatives of the plains, the 

 Blackfoot, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. 



The Hudson Indians, who originallj^ belonged to the scalping 

 Algonquin, though there is no record that they have ever been ob- 

 served by the whites to practice the custom, gathered for a time a 

 peculiar kind of a war trophy, namely, the hand. The development 

 of this peculiarity can be traced to the introduction by the Dutch of 

 negro slaves and the reward offered by the owners, according to a 

 widespread habit in Africa, for the right hand of every slave fugi- 

 tive. The Indians engaged in the pursuit of such fugitives just as 

 the whites did. Later on, when difficulties arose between the whites 

 and some of the natives a reward was set by the former on the hands 

 of the Indians, and in the so-called Esopus war hands of the fallen 

 were cut off and carried away as trophies both by the Hollanders 

 and by the Indians. With, or even before, the end of the Dutch 

 dominion the usage ceased and was eventually replaced by the 

 practice of taking scalps, for which premiums were offered by the 

 English. 



The Newfoundland Beothuc exercised, according to Thevet, the 

 custom of scalping in its primitive form. 



The Huron-Iroquois were accused of being the probable originators 

 of scalping iu North America, but it seems that if there was any 

 single point where the practice was developed and from whence it 

 spread, it must be placed farther south, toward the Gulf of Mexico. 

 It was common at the time of the discovery in Florida, and its spread- 

 ing thence would also explain its occurrence in the Guianas. The 

 Iroquois may have acquired the custom through the Cherokee, whose 

 legends speak of it as of an old habit, and through the Tuscarora and 

 Susquehannock. 



Among the peoples speaking the Timucua and Muskhogee scalping 

 was found by the first whites to be general. In fact, the custom ex- 

 tended all over the territory of the present Gulf States, on both sides 

 of the Mississippi, among the Natchez and Tonika tribes, and farther 

 on to the Caddo of Texas. In the last-named territory a good illus- 

 tration of the mode of the development of the practice was furnished 



