360 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull, oi 



At the final camp a returning war party prepared the scalps which 

 they had taken for use in the victory dance. Eagle Shield said: 



They selected a man who had dreamed of a carnivorous animal which attacks 

 human beings, if such a man were in the party. This man scraped the flesh from the 

 inside of the scalp, and having mixed the fat from it with gunpowder, rubbed it on 

 his face and hands. He did this because of his dream of an animal that devours 

 human beings. Then, making a little hoop, he sewed the scalp inside it and fastened 

 it at the end of a pole.' 



Plate 52 shows a scalp captured by a Sioux warrior. This seems 

 not to have been placed hi a hoop, but dried by stretching with 

 two short sticks, the mark of one being clearly discernible. The 

 texture of the skin made it possible for this specimen to be fully 

 identified at the United States National Museum as a huiptian scalp. 

 A dance ornament made of human hair (pi. 52) was obtained 

 among the Sioux, but does not represent a custom of that tribe. 

 Tliis ornament is said to have been worn by the Crows in dancing. 

 It was later used by the Mandan and Hidatsa, with whom the Sioux 

 were frequently at war and from whom this article was undoubtedly 

 taken. When among the Mandan at Fort Berthold the ^\Tite^ was 

 told that ornaments of this sort were frequently seen in the old 

 days, and that they were made, not from scalps of an enemy, but 

 from hair wliich had been cut or had fallen out and been kept for 

 the making of the ornament. The strands of hair were secured at 

 intervals with spruce or oth(T gum, and the ornament was fastened 

 to the wearer's head, the hair hanging down his back. 



A victorious war party approached the village on its return, bear- 

 ing the scalps aloft on poles. Dog Eagle said that he sang this song 

 when he came in sight of the camp on his return from war. It was 

 used also in the dances which followed. 



• Concerning the usage of the Chippewa in preparing a scarp see Bull. 53, p. US; of the Menomini, see 

 Skinner, Alanson, War Customs of the Menomini Indians, A mcr. Anthr. ,xin, No. 2, p. 309, Lancaster, Pa., 

 1911; and of the Osage, see Eleventh Rep. Bur. Ethn., p. 526. 



