SCALPING  , the

custom of removing the skin of the skull, with hair attached . Though generally associated with the North American Indians, the practice has been common in Europe, Asia and Africa . The underlying idea, as of similar mutilations of those slain in battle, is the warrior's wish to preserve a portable proof or trophy of his prowess . Scalping was the usual form of mutilation from the earliest times . Herodotus (iv . 64) describes the practice among the Scythians . The Abbe Emmanuel H . D . Domenech (Seven Years' Residence in the Great Desert of North America, ch . 39) quotes the decalvare of the ancient Germans, the capillos et cutem detrahere of the code of the Visigoths, and the Annals of Flodoard, to prove that the Anglo-Saxons and the Franks still scalped about A.U . 879 . In Africa it was, and doubtless is, as prevalent as are all barbarous mutilations .

Among the North American Indians scalping was always in the nature of a rite . It was common to those tribes

east of the Rocky Mountains, in the south-west and upper Columbia; but unknown apparently among the Eskimo, along the north-west coast, and on the Pacific coast west of the Cascade range and the Sierras, except among some few Californian tribes, or here and there in Mexico and southward . Properly the scalp could only be taken after a fair fight; in more recent times there seems to have been no such restriction . To facilitate the operation the braves wore long war-locks or scalping-tufts, as an implied challenge . These locks were braided with bright ribbons or ornamented with a feather . After the successful warrior's return the scalp or scalps captured were dried, mounted and consecrated by a solemn dance . Some tribes hung the scalps to their bridles, others to their shields, while some ornamented with them the outer seams of their leggings . Scalping was some-times adopted by the whites in their wars with the Redskins, and bounties have been offered for scalps several times in American history .