I've read all the posts on the relative merits of keeping gun brass shiny and I think as far as White men go it was really an individual matter. I do lean,however, to the notion that most men had enough pride in their weaponry that they would have done their best to keep their rifles clean and well oiled and probably keeping them as rust free as possible wiping down the mounts along with the rest of the gun.
I think that Indians did the same. I don't know where it is but I have a trade record from Montreal which stated that Indians preferred guns with "yellow" mounts.The Fusils fin which were presented to Indians by the French in Canada and Louisiana were almost universally brass mounted as a token of esteem. I have two reenactment guns. One is an English fowler of 1740 styling in brass and the other is a French Fusil Ca. 1680-1690 mounted in iron. I keep it clean and free of rust and I think Indians did much the same.
I noted that Cody stated tht the Btritish introduced scalping to the Indians.This is is an inaccurate statement.There is a very good short article in "The Encyclopedia Of the North American Indian" by James Axtell of William and Mary College titled, "Scalps and Scalping" Basically his premise is that there is no record of non-Indians scalping except for the Scythians,nomadic Eurasian peoples of the 8th and 4th centuries
[url] BC.In[/url] North America there is pre-contact evidence of skulls with scalps having been taken Ca. 2500-500 BC.One of De Soto's men was scalped in the 16 th century and there are Jacques LeMoyne's sketches of scalps being taken in the 16th century{Theodore de Bry's depiction}.
Other early explorers mentioning scalping by Indians include Jacques Cartier,16th centurty and Peter Radisson in the 17th century while with the Mohawks who used the term "Head" to probably denote a scalp.
As to European promotion of scalps, payments or bounties were offered as early as 1637 for Indian scalps and after 1688 for European scalps.The most infamous purchaser of scalps was of course British Colonel Henry Hamilton of Detroit who became known as the "hair buyer".
Tom Patton