Trade Scalper

[LRB]

Fresh out of the shop. 18th C. partial tang trade scalper, with 6"x1"x3/32" blade of 01 steel, walnut one piece grip. Iron pins.

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[Legionair]

Nice one.... I always was kinda partial to the straight, round handle style.
:hatsoff:
Legion

 

[Blackpowder Injun]

can we just call it a knife? I dont like calling it a scalper, brings up too many issues....

 

[LRB]

Sorry, I don't know for sure what they were called back then, but "scalping knife" is the generally accepted term for that design. Whites could be guilty of the practice, as well as NA's. Were you ever scalped, or what? I think my wife would have done me a few times, but I don't have enough hair left for her to hold on to, to do a proper job of it.

 

[shmrck1]

Wick,
VERY NICE!
snake-eyes :hatsoff:

 

[Vagabond]

Whites acctually started the whole scalping buisness...
Indian scalps sold for quite a lot in europe, the Indians probably started doing it out of revenge or just for trophies as they were treasured as such by both whites and indians. Hard to accuratly discuss history, what with people being obsessed with political correctness...

 

[Okwaho]

Whites acctually started the whole scalping buisness...
Indian scalps sold for quite a lot in europe, the Indians probably started doing it out of revenge or just for trophies as they were treasured as such by both whites and indians. Hard to accuratly discuss history, what with people being obsessed with political correctness...

I really don't know where you came up with that mish mash of incorrect information. Scalps were originally taken as substitutes for the entire head whenever it was impossible or inconvenient to bring the head back.The scalp was a trophy of war and as such could be found in the lodges and attached to weapons such as war clubs and tomahawks.They varied in size with the early{17th century and earlier being somewhat larger due to the fact that Northeastern Indians of the very early 18th and earlier centuries wore their hair long as borne out by the many drawings and other images of that period. Lafitau,{1712-17 Vol.II P.42 writing about the Mohawks of Gaughnawaga{near Montreal},mentions the young Iroquois warrios wearing their hair long on one side and short on the other.The scalp was generally suspended from a willow circle and often painted red on the bottom not to simulate blood but as a power symbol among other things.

Scalping was also practiced in other aboriginal societies far removed from American Indians. Early explorers have commented on the practice and it has been estimated that the custom of scalping predates white contact by several hundred years.
Tom Patton

 

[fatboy]

I am not going to say that whites taught the Indian to scalp . But I thought I read some where not to long ago that Europeans where doing this very thing in some of the battles they had among themselves, but I could be wrong

 

[Blackpowder Injun]

I dont like to think of all the native women and children who were scalped by white soldiers...and no i've never been scalped, an army barber once came close, but he stopped at the skin...lol

 

[Claude Mathis]

Whites acctually started the whole scalping buisness...

I think this has been proven to be a myth.

Here is a short excerpt from my files.

The Crow Creek site mentioned dates to the early 1300's, certainly prior to European contact. And there is archeological evidence that predates that.
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However, most of these victims came from Crow Creek Canyon, the site of a large-scale massacre involving a minimum of 486 individuals (Gregg et al 1981). The excavators report that not only were almost every person scalped, but they also were mutilated and dismembered, and many of their hands and feet appear to have been removed and taken as trophies. This custom has been documented historically for certain Native American culture groups in the United States (Friederici 1907). Thus, it appears that something quite different from small scale raiding activities was occurring at Crow Creek Canyon. Furthermore, the skeletal remains were so mixed as to preclude the possibility of assigning post-cranial elements with the proper skulls, so detailed information about individuals is not available. Crow Creek is included in the study only because it gives evidence of the intensity of conflict in the Northern Plains during the mid-fourteenth century, and because two of the crania found at the site demonstrated a lesion of the frontal and parietals consistent with survival of a scalping incident. Presumably those two earlier scalping events were unrelated to the massacre itself, and therefore can be included in the analysis of scalping survivors discussed below....

.... It could be argued, then, that scalping in pre-Columbian America was more likely the result of raiding activity than of large-scale warfare taking place on a battlefield. The evidence for such an assertion is that women were not generally known to be warriors during historic times, and therefore, would be more likely to be scalped in or near their own villages (although see Ewers 1994).

 

[fatboy]

Scalping was practiced by the ancient Scythians of Eurasia. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote of the Scythians in 440 BC: "The Scythian soldier scrapes the scalp clean of flesh and softening it by rubbing between the hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth is proud of these scalps and hangs them from his bridle rein; the greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves cloaks by sewing a quantity of these scalps together."

According to historian James Axtell, there is no evidence that the early European explorers and settlers in the Americas were familiar with this practice of the Scythians, or that they ever taught scalping to Native Americans. There is clear evidence, says Axtell, that the practice of scalping existed long before Europeans arrived, primarily in North America. The theory that Native Americans learned the practice of scalping from Europeans first appeared in the 1690s and is still professed by some writers and activists, but this belief is not supported by most academic scholars.

 

[dlemaster]

There was an archaeological dig at a late pre-historic site called Madisonville near Cincinnati Ohio in the early years of the 20th century. Several skeletons were excavated that had evidently suffered torture and burning at the stake. The skulls show evidence of scalping. This site pre-dated contact with Europeans.
If you think about it, as Okwaho says scalping provides proof positive of a victory over an enemy, that would be light weight and easy to take care of. It is so simple a process that, as someone else said its been done for thousands of years.

I have seen trade records from the middle of the 18th century which say the that "Scalping Knives" were shipped over from England by the cask full. These were probably the blades only, the handles being applied here.

Regards, Dave

 

[dlemaster]

Wick
Here is an English scalping knife I made about 15 years ago. It was made from tracings made from two knives excavated at Ft. Ligonier Pa. ca.1758 and one found at Ft. Ticonderoga. They were all identical in measurements, and the tracings were laid on top of one another with no differences. They are also identical to your measurements.
This indicates that there was an established pattern for scalping knives being made in England and shipped over here for the trade.

Regards, Dave

 

Wick
Here is an English scalping knife I made about 15 years ago. It was made from tracings made from two knives excavated at Ft. Ligonier Pa. ca.1758 and one found at Ft. Ticonderoga. They were all identical in measurements, and the tracings were laid on top of one another with no differences. They are also identical to your measurements.
This indicates that there was an established pattern for scalping knives being made in England and shipped over here for the trade.

Regards, Dave

Isn't that handle design typical of the French, not the English?

 

[LRB]

That may be a question for Okwaho, but I believe that grip, although maybe more common to the French, was also popular throughout the 18th C. colonies and frontier. I make one that is a carbon copy of that grip. I don't mean close, nearly exact. Thanks dvlmstr.

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[crockett]

Let's not get after vagabond too much. I have read the same stuff about the British introducing North American Indians to the practice of scalping. Sounded a bit lame so I did some checking and came across the info about the old digs and scalping having been practiced before the Europeans showed up. IMO I think some folks out in Liberal Land viewed scalping as a savage practice and then didn't want to depict the Indian as a savage so they decided to make the British the savage instead. What kind of logic is that? Such are the times in which we live.
IN ANY EVENT if you look at the inventory lists of the Fur Commpanys these knives were always listed as either Indian Knives or Scalping knives. Sometimes they were listed as a red handled knife- a scalper with a handle of logwood, camwood, or barwood. Such knives appear on NWco. lists, HBC lists, AFco. lists, Columbia River Fishing and Trading Co lists, and RMF co lists. The NW Co/HBC was supplied by one outfit in Sheffield and the AFco got their knives from Cutler or Wilson. Much earlier there was a long, skinny type scalper more common to the Eastern tribes.

 

[anvil1231]

Wick,whether it be for a cuttin taters or scalping is really is a nice knife. :bow: anvil