Scalp-taking

Abstract

At their arrival in North America, travelers from the Old Continent were exposed to a radically different civilization. Among the many practices that captured their imagination was scalp-taking. During a battle, the Native American warrior would often stop after having killed or subdued the enemy and cut off his scalp. In this article, we develop an economic theory of this gruesome practice. We argue that scalp-taking constituted an institutional solution to the problem of monitoring warriors’ behavior in the battlefield under conditions of high information costs.

Off With Their Heads: A Cross-Sectional Study of 100 Hair and Scalp Trauma Scenes in Films and Television Series

“…1 Scalping played a fundamental social role in intertribal warfare, with many Indigenous North American groups retrieving scalps from dead or injured enemies, displaying them in their homes, stitching them into hats or coats, and wearing them at victory parties. 2 Therefore, our finding that hair/scalp trauma was most frequently performed for souvenir, horror effect, or torture is consistent with historical references.…”

“Scalping” in the context of criminal dismemberment and mutilation—a case report and review of the literature

“…Scalping/scalp-taking as an ancient practice was prevalent—as described in more detail in the respective sources—in ancient China, South America, Central Europe, Scandinavia [ 7 ], and Egypt [ 8 ]; it was performed by the Scythians (as described by Heredotus [ 9 ], according to [ 10 ]), possibly Roman legionaries [ 11 ], and others.…”

“… Practical transportation during raids and nomadic life favours scalping over taking whole heads. Spiritual transfer of powers from the victim to the scalp-taker (scalp considered to contain the soul) [ 7 , 13 , 16 ] and denial of entry to the afterlife for the scalped enemy through bodily incompleteness [ 17 ]. …”