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Scalping   Listen
noun
Scalping  n.  A. & n. from Scalp.
Scalping iron (Surg.), an instrument used in scraping foul and carious bones; a raspatory.
Scalping knife, a knife used by North American Indians in scalping.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Scalping" Quotes from Famous Books



... us scalping enough," said Charlie Bolton; "I'm a little afraid you are too tender-hearted to give your story the proper dramatic effect. It's worth nothing unless there is a great deal of blood spilt, and a whole string ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... shattered remains of this army continued at Fort Cumberland, and fortified themselves there, as they might easily have done, during the rest of the summer, they would have been such a check upon the French and their scalping Indians, as would have prevented many of those ravages that were committed in the ensuing winter upon the western borders of Virginia and Pennsylvania; but, instead of taking that prudent step, their commander left only the sick ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... said, as he drew near. "No; none of our folks have such hair as that," he added, after examining the scalps, one by one. Then, taking possession of the rifle, powder-horn, and bullet-pouch, and thrusting the Indian's scalping-knife into his belt, and throwing some limbs over the body, that it might not so soon be discovered by his friends, Tom hurried away in the direction of the fort, as Long Hair had suggested. He lingered ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson

... poor old family' needed him. I was told afterwards that he had in reality eloped with a young lady, which may be the truth of the matter. Talolo, our new cook, amuses me very much. He was greatly shocked at hearing of the scalping of victims by American Indians, but thought the taking of heads in the Samoan fashion perfectly right, as the victim was then ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

... 220.).—W.B.D. confounds beheading with scalping. In the American war many British soldiers, it was said, walked about without their scalps, ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 50. Saturday, October 12, 1850 • Various

... was dimly conscious of this himself. I know that he longed to be doing something,—slaying a grizzly, scalping a savage, or sacrificing himself in some way for the sake of this sallow-faced, gray-eyed schoolmistress. As I should like to present him in an heroic attitude, I stay my hand with great difficulty at this moment, being only withheld from introducing such an episode by a strong ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... I get my orders and you and I depart for Scalping Creek or Perdition Peak, or wherever I am to be shoveled off to, the better, my dear," said the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... glance showed me at once he had met with an adventure similar to mine near Santa Fe. In the canoe lay the skin of a large finely-spotted jaguar, and by it a young cub, playing unconsciously with the scalping-knife, yet ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... of these colonists? They are men of the same English stock as ourselves: six to one of us (repeating it emphatically), six to one, sir; and nearly half our troops are Hessians, Brunswickers, German dragoons, and Indians with scalping knives. These are the countrymen on whose devotion you rely! Suppose the colonists find a leader! Suppose the news from Springtown should turn out to mean that they have already found a leader! What shall we do ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw

... darker skin. One of these is that he of the blanket has no rights that he of the dress coat is bound to respect. The Indian rises in practical debate to this question. His arguments are not words, but the rifle and the scalping-knife. The whiter man demurs when he receives his justice dished up to ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan

... too well acquainted with Indian ways to think of pursuing, and, restraining the eagerness of Heyward, who would have followed Magua, and would have been undoubtedly led to the place where the scalping-knives of Magua's companions awaited him, the scout called a council ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... did he intend the fire should blaze on that side of the street? Your charity may believe him innocent, but your understanding does not. Well! I am glad to hear he is going to America; I hope he will not bring back scalping, even to that National Assembly of which he was proud of being elected a member! I doubt if Cartouche would have thought it an honour. It was stuck up in Lloyd's coffeehouse lately, that the Duke of Orleans was named "Chef de ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... is permitted to wear one with long, trailing plumes. Also those who have counted many coups may tip the ends of the feathers with bits of white or colored down. Sometimes the eagle feather is tipped with a strip of weasel skin; that means the wearer had the honor of killing, scalping and counting the first coup upon the enemy all at ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman

... latest fashion in "oversea" hair cuts. The victims sat on a ration box while the barber mowed great swaths through tangled thatch with a pair of close-cutting clippers. But instead of making a complete job of it, a thick fringe of hair which resembled a misplaced scalping tuft was left for decorative purposes, just above the forehead. The effect was so grotesque that I had to invent an excuse for laughing. It was a lame one, I fear, for Shorty looked at me warningly. When we had gone on a ...
— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

... protect them. I could build a house of heavy logs and keep my wife and children always near me while at work. But it seemed to me that Melissa Daggett and her kin with their flashy papers, and the influence of the street for Merton and Bobsey, involved more danger to my little band than all the scalping Modocs that ever whooped. The children could not step outside the door without danger of meeting some one who would do them harm. It is the curse of crowded city life that there is so little of a natural ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe

... the man, that, in addition to these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, has dared to authorize and associate to our arms the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage? to call into civilized alliance the wild and inhuman savage of the woods; to delegate to the merciless Indian the defence of disputed rights, and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war against our brethren? My Lords, these enormities ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... indeed surprising as well as mortifying. By their treatment of us, it is evident they consider us a sort of white savages, with minds as uncultivated, and dispositions as ferocious as their own allies, with their tomahawks and scalping knives. After conversing with this worthy Englishman, about the education of the common people in America, I could not but say to myself, little do you, good sir, and your haughty, and unfeeling captain imagine, that there are those ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... as it is when I reach Carlin, the "boys" must see how a bicycle is ridden, and, as there is no other place suitable, I manage to circle around the pool-table in the hotel bar-room a few times, nearly scalping myself against the bronze chandelier in the operation. I hasten, however, to explain that these proceedings took place immediately after my arrival, lest some worldly wise, over-sagacious person should be led to suspect them to be the riotous undertakings ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... rocks with night mist wetted, Keen his scalping knife he whetted, For the ruddy firelight dancing On the brown locks of Miss ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... him their frank attention. Each boy had his hair cut straight around below the ears, where his mother had measured it with an inverted bowl, and freshly trimmed him for life in the fort, and perhaps for the discomfiture of savages, if he came under the scalping knife. Open-mouthed or stern-jawed, according to temperament, the young pioneers listened to stories about Tecumseh, and surmises on the enemy's march, and the likelihood of a ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... can be better than Mr. Ascott Hope's choice of The Wigwam and the War-path as the name of a collection of all the most scalping stories, so to speak, of the North American Indians ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... week it had come to fathers, husbands, brothers, in this sunny Valley of ours, leaving homes they should never see again!—that nothing but our right arms could save these women, my own flesh and blood, from the hatchet and scalping-knife. ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... brother were sworn friends, of drying the tears of pretty Mrs. Constance, and of seeing the old Colonel without being hated as the bearer of ill news. But on carefully examining the wallet which Dr. Lloyd prepared for the journey, and ascertaining that, instead of astrological calculations and scalping knives, it contained only comforts and necessaries, Jobson, with renewed courage and joyous expectations, set out to accompany him on ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... known, and devote their future lives to the instruction of wild savages, as much as to the advancement of the French colonists, expecting also that the relentless Iroquois would repay their Christian love with the tomahawk or the scalping-knife, and in those days how often was the expectation verified. Yet these considerations were precisely what attracted a great number of talented young girls, fully capable of sustaining and perfecting the enterprise, and worthy to share with the holy Foundress the labor, the glory, ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... Government railway bond issues, franchises and stock-quotations were beyond that cheap stiff's depth. Probably Cranston was holding forth in regard to some petty theft which his crew of spotters had discovered, some ticket-scalping conductor—— ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... of self-esteem which dwelt, like a perpetual spring, upon the mind of Mr. Stubbs. Mr. McCrab was himself an amateur actor; he had also written a tolerably successful comedy, as well as an unsuccessful tragedy; and he was, besides, a formidable critic, whose scalping strictures, in a weekly journal, were the terror of all authors and actors who were either unable or unwilling to dispense turtle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various

... greatly excited. "Indians! they're coming with the tommyhawk and scalping knife, and we'll need to be thankful if they ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... determined to conquer them in his own way. 'This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.' The Indians were accustomed to slaughter. They understood no language but the language of the tomahawk and the scalping-knife. Ever since the white man had landed on American shores, the forests had resounded with the war-whoops of the tribesmen. One night a colonial settlement had been raided by the red men: the next ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... of the burning Colorado desert are whitening with the bones of many who escaped Comanche and Apache scalping knives, ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage

... river? 'Tis for life the only chance; Only this may some deliver From the scalping-knife and lance. Through the throng of wailing women Frantic men in terror burst;— "Back, ye cowards!" thundered Mauley,— "I will take the women first!" Then with brawny arms and lever Back the craven men he smote. Brave and ready—grim and ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... burned. If they fought, they might hold out, but the Indians were led by white soldiers and it would be a desperate siege, much worse than the other sieges. If they were overcome, they could expect no mercy, for the few whites would be unable to keep the tomahawks and scalping-knives from them. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... utterly conquered, from henceforth their hearts were filled with hatred against all the Carolinians. This hatred the Spaniards did their best to keep alive. They supplied the Indians with weapons, and made them valiant with "fire water." Thus encouraged they broke across the borders in small scalping parties, seizing and slaying, often with unspeakable tortures, all those who dwelt in lonely places. These frays were so unceasing, and so deadly, that at length hardly any one dared live ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... of greeting went up to the twinkling stars, and every savage brandished a tomahawk, scalping knife, or some other kind ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish

... these: skinning alive, cutting off hands, taking out the bowels, cutting the flesh open, putting out the eyes, beheading, scalping, cutting off feet, boring the shin bones, pouring melted lead into the flesh, hanging, stabbing, and sending ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... the house of the missionaries (Montaret's first night). You make it seem real. Naissa scalping, and then wiping her hands on the grass, seemed to me especially well done. As well as the disgust that ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert

... were beginning to regard the poetry of the palisades as a thing of the past, when, suddenly, our ears were startled by the echo of the warwhoop, and the crack of the rifle, and our hearts appalled by the gleam of the tomahawk and the scalping knife, as they descended in indiscriminate and remorseless slaughter, on defenceless women and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... before, a great meteor had shot through the night, blood-red and bearded, drawing a slow-fading fiery trail across the heavens; and the moon had risen that same night blood-red, and upon its disk there was drawn in shadow a thing most marvelously like a scalping knife. Wherefore, the following day being Sunday, good Mr. Stockham, our minister at Weyanoke, exhorted us to be on our guard, and in his prayer besought that no sedition or rebellion might raise its head amongst the Indian subjects ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... phrase McClellan was implored to save the capital. He displayed an unselfish patriotism by accepting the task without conditions for himself, but it may be doubted if he was right in leaving devoted friends under the scalping-knife, speedily applied, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... significance; but it was marked by romantic incidents and heroic deeds. Much of the fighting took place in the forest. The Indians showed their characteristic daring and their characteristic unwillingness to stand a long-continued, steady attack. Their scalping- knives and stakes added a fearful horror to many of the battles. On both sides the military policy seemed simple. The English must attack, the French must do their best to defend. The French were vulnerable in Nova Scotia and on the Ohio; their centre also was pierced ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... with the promise of large rewards, at length prevailed; and a treaty was concluded, in which the Indians pledged themselves to take up arms against the rebels, and continue in service during the war. They were then presented each with a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quantity of powder and lead, and a piece of gold. [Footnote: Life of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard

... will he proclaim?—As to the recruits he gets, I'll eat them all, skin and bone. What will he proclaim? You see what Burgoyne offers us. On the one hand, money and clothing, and protection for ourselves and our families; and on the other, the cord, and the tomahawk, and the scalping-knife. Now, what will General Schuyler set down over against these two columns?—What will he offer us?—To lend us a gun, maybe,—leave to follow him from one post to another, barefooted and starving, and for our pains to be cursed and reviled ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon

... ornamental, which were thought indispensable to a higher civilization. "Spots in Tennessee, in Ohio, and Kentucky," comments an English traveler, "that within the lifetime of even young men, witnessed only the arrow and the scalping knife, now present the traveler with articles of elegance and modes of luxury which might rival the displays of London and Paris." Most of this stock was transported over the mountains from Philadelphia ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... feet, drew a small tomahawk from her belt of wampum, and imitated the act of scalping the enemy; then again waving her hand as forbidding him to advance, she darted into the bushes, ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson

... saw Mrs. Indian's horse's tail flicker. Like to have a close-up, wouldn't you? Staring at us like that, it makes a fellow feel as if he's been stealing something of theirs and they're taking a good look in time for the scalping season." ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan

... hill, the graveyard quietly chronicled this new epoch of Drybone. So-and-so was seldom killed very far out of town, and of course scalping had disappeared. "Sacred to the memory of Four-ace Johnston, accidently shot, Sep. 4, 1885." Perhaps one is still there unaltered: "Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Ryan's babe. Aged two months." This unique corpse had succeeded in dying with ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister

... Leon had gone by themselves—Guapo to fell the trees as usual, and Leon who was now an expert bark-peeler, to use the scalping-knife. Don Pablo had remained at home, busy with work in the great magazine, for there was much to do there in ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... him for a ransom," said the redheaded boy. "Aunt Almira will give us enough to buy a melon, and make us a pail of lemonade, if we let this gray-haired old settler off without scalping him." ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck

... well as the Indians were alike hostile to the English trader, it was no difficult matter to apprehend danger. At length the Indians, about sixty in number, arrived, each with a tomahawk in one hand and a scalping knife in the other. The garrison at this time contained about ninety soldiers, a commander and two officers. Beside the small arms, on the bastions were mounted two small pieces of brass cannon. Beside ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... realities. Hence, when they gave a real war-dance, it was dangerous for any parties, except their manager and interpreter to be on the stage, for the moment they had finished their war-dance, they began to leap and peer about behind the scenes in search of victims for their tomahawks and scalping knives! Indeed, lest in these frenzied moments they might make a dash at the orchestra or the audience, Barnum had a high rope barrier placed between them and the savages on the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... enough to make fun of your not having any hair on your own head to give anybody? Surely you have a better opinion of me than that? I give you my word of honor, I never thought of you, or your head, or that infernal scalping business, when I said what I did. It was ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages be let loose to murder our citizens, and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping knife, will be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man, found fighting by the side of an Indian, will be taken prisoner—instant destruction will be his lot. If the dictates of reason, duty, justice, and humanity, cannot prevent the ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper

... there was no slovenliness or untidiness; and, ha! there were the first signs of work on the white sheets of manuscript paper. I wonder what is he writing about. It is not quite honorable, but as I am on the war path, perhaps I could get here a pretext for scalping him. Notes! ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... Tories and British from Canada utilized the Iroquois and the Ohio Valley Indians as allies. The New York frontier was in continual distress; {101} and the Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia settlements felt the scalping knife and torch. Hamilton, the British commander at the post of Detroit, paid a fixed price for scalps, and was known as "the hair buyer." Against the Iroquois, Sullivan led an expedition in 1779 which could not bring ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith

... them—the party of traders and hunters being in all but fifteen. Of those slain upon the spot there was not one now wearing his hair. Their heads were bare and bloody, the crown of each showing a circular disc of dark crimson colour. The scalping-knife had already completed its work, and the ghastly trophies were seen impaled upon the points of spears— some of them stuck upright in the sand, others borne triumphantly about by the exulting victors. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... out from Hidden Water, the earth lay dead beneath their horses' feet—stark and naked, stripped to the rocks by the sheep. Even on Bronco Mesa the ground was shorn of its covering; the cloven hoofs of the sheep had passed over it like a scalping knife, tearing off the last sun-blasted fringe of grass. In open spaces where they had not found their way the gaunt cattle still curled their hungry tongues beneath the bushes and fetched out spears of grass, or licked the scanty Indian wheat from ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... What a waste!" he said. "Now the army hass retreated and the whole border iss uncovered. The tomahawk and scalping knife are at work. Tales of slaughter come in efery day, and it iss said that Montcalm iss ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... others, we get abundance of free tickets for concerts, panoramas, and glass-blowers. Once, indeed, the great Chippewa chief, Haw-waw-many-squaw, having thrown the town into consternation by placards of himself scalping his enemies and smoking their tobacco, makes a triumphal entry into the main street at full gallop, and pitching his tent before the court-house, walks into the parsonage—war plumes, moccasins, and all—gives us complimentary seats, and eats the better half of our dinner. This incident ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... before the raid at Lawrence, were eclipsed after it. Scalping, for the first time, was ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger

... Flink," in a state of sulky collapse, had been sent home in her taxi, Doris, Bentley, and Miss Wigram held a conference. But it came to little. Bentley, the hater of "rows," simply could not be moved to take the thing up. "I kept her from scalping him!—" he laughed—"and I'm not due for any more!" Doris said little. A whirl of arguments and projects were in her mind. But she kept her own counsel about them. As to the possibility of inducing the man to break it off, she repeated the only condition on which it could be done; at which ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... another proof of their being descended from the Phenicians. [Footnote: The author might have mentioned a singular custom, in which both nations agree; for it appears from Polybius, 1 I. c. 6. that Carthaginians practised scalping.] ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... out in a moment. Her hair hung down in two heavy braids, and as she gave one frightened glance backward I saw her catch them both in one hand and draw them over her shoulder as if to save them from the scalping knife. ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter

... jocose, apologetic way, he said that, although others might smoke cigars and cigarettes, he clung to the pipe—and in spite of the fact that, at the Philadelphia Exposition, as he had heard, a great German pipe was hung among tomahawks, scalping-knives, and other relics of barbarism. From time to time a servant refilled his pipe, while he discoursed upon various subjects—first upon the condition of America and of Germany; then upon South American matters, and of the struggle between ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... impression. Those in advance came running back on the main body frightened, and many of them wounded. They reported there were five thousand Frenchmen and a legion of yelling Indian devils in front, who were scalping our people as they fell. We could hear their cries from the wood around as our men dropped under their rifles. There was no inducing the people to go forward now. One aide-de-camp after another was sent forward, and never returned. At last it came to be my turn, and I was ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the stalwart old chief, whose good qualities certainly surpassed his evil ones. He was honorable, brave, generous and magnanimous. He never permitted a captive to be tortured, and early gave up the practice of scalping the enemies he had slain. As a leader in Indian warfare he ranks high, and his final campaign had in its purpose the same comprehensive idea which actuated Tecumseh and Pontiac, that of a union of all Indian tribes; and he had the further intent of drawing ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... prisoner Lamothe, was a captain of the volunteer scalping parties of Indians and whites, who went, from time to time, under general orders to spare neither men, women, nor children. From this detail of circumstances, which arose in a few cases only, coming accidentally to the knowledge of the board, they think ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... awful! It was Indians he wished for - Cyril - at breakfast, don't you remember? He said, "I wish there were Red Indians in England," - and now there are, and they're going about scalping people all over the ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit

... every year; Our vices, with more zeal than holy prayers, She teaches them, and in return takes theirs. Her rank oppressions give them cause to rise, Her want of prudence, means and arms supplies, Whilst her brave rage, not satisfied with life, Rising in blood, adopts the scalping-knife. Knowledge she gives, enough to make them know How abject is their state, how deep their woe; 80 The worth of freedom strongly she explains, Whilst she bows down, and loads their necks with chains. Faith, too, she plants, for her own ends impress'd, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... until the beard on his lip announced him qualified to follow his own nose, without too great danger of forgetting to allow that organ the help of his eyes and ears. But as it was, they would have done a wiser and more benevolent part by their boy had they given him a scalping knife, without sheath, for a plaything, or a young bear, without a muzzle and chain, for a pet. The knife might have cut off a few of his fingers, and the bear might have clawed off some of his flesh, but the mischief done would have been slight, compared ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... is passed through the pectoral muscles, and a horse-hair rope inserted, by which they must swing from a post till the flesh is torn through. Indians will never scalp a negro; it is "bad medicine." By the way, is not scalping spoken of in the Book of Maccabees as a custom of the Jews and Syrians? The tit-bits of a butchered carcass are, to the Indians, the intestines, a speciality being the liver with the contents of the gall bladder sprinkled over it! Horses, dogs, wolves ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... terror to the Tobacco Indians. Among them, too, perished Jesuit priests, martyrs to the faith. Did some of the Hurons venture from the Christian Islands across to the mainland to hunt, they were beset by scalping parties and came back to the fort with tales that crazed Ragueneau's Indians with terror. The Hurons decided to abandon Georgian Bay. Some scattered to Lake Superior, to Green Bay, to Detroit. Others found refuge on Manitoulin Island. A remnant of a few hundreds followed Ragueneau and the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut

... Masther Denis, jump in; here come a whole host of Indians," he exclaimed, "and they'll be after scalping every mother's son of us if ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston

... of elm bark upon the ground, extending it by means of four large stones, one of which he laid upon each corner. Then with his scalping knife he drew upon it a complete map of the white settlements in Kain-tuck-ee and of the rivers, creeks, hills, and trails. He did this with great knowledge and skill, and when he held it up it was so complete that Henry, who could see it as well as the others, was compelled to admire. He recognized ...
— The Riflemen of the Ohio - A Story of the Early Days along "The Beautiful River" • Joseph A. Altsheler

... hurt him," grinned Carol impishly. "We had intended to tie him to a stake and burn him alive. But since you have interceded on his behalf, we'll let him off with a simple scalping." ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston

... mighty, then, We, the Iroquois men, Smoke the peace pipe with them With these marauders! No! we, the feared in strife, Hunted the precious life, With the red scalping ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... gliding arms which did not seem to be attached to a body, they quivered with a rapture of fear. Reality had vanished. A yelping squabble suddenly rose, then Juanita Haydock's high titter, and Guy Pollock's astonished, "Ouch! Quit! You're scalping me!" ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis

... on his way to England when he and his companion, Mr. Hingston, encountered the Pi-ute Indians, and narrowly escaped scalping. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... of my long exile would be of little good— Though I couldn't half-way tell it, and I wouldn't if I could! I could tell of California—of a wild and vicious life; Of trackless plains, and mountains, and the Indian's scalping-knife. ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... I saw what I had not noticed before: that at the belt of each of the tall, silent young backwoodsmen hung one or more wet, heavy, red and black soggy strips. The scalping had been no mere figure of speech! Thank heaven! none of our own people were ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... my father. He is Hard Robe, the war chief of the Osage Indians. I have been educated in the East. We came here with the intention of scalping you all. This tribe has been abused by what my father calls the palefaces, though he wishes to be friendly with them. When a small part of this nation comes in contact with a larger force of palefaces, they are ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... ticket, and checked her scanty baggage. The usual crowd of loafers was about the place, and his every action was observed with the deepest interest. Wherever he moved the spectators followed. Urchins near at hand fought horrible mimic duels for his benefit; duels which invariably ended in the scalping of the vanquished—and with expressions of demoniacal exultation playing upon the face of the conqueror. From far in the rear a war whoop sounded; and when the effort was to all evidence ignored, was repeated intrepidly near at hand. They put themselves elaborately in his way, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge

... the tribe for evil was gone, and we hear no more of them till the Revolution, when their warriors followed Burgoyne to Saratoga, where they again used the tomahawk and scalping knife, but when his fortunes began to wane, they retired to the banks of the St. Lawrence. Again in the war of 1812, they joined the English, but their numbers were few, and after a brief campaign, they, for the last time, retraced their steps to ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder

... and avoided him. We had our little scalping-parties or war-paths and ambuscades, in imitation of the Indians, but in spite of that we hated them heartily, and thought it a great weakness on the part of our minister, Bishop Hancock, when he spoke a good word ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan

... we hugely welcomed the ham. Presently our guide appeared—quite a spruce old Indian, as Indians go. I had never been able to shake off my childhood conviction that an Indian was a fearsome creature, hopelessly addicted to scalping knives and tomahawks, and I secretly felt quite horrified at the idea of two defenceless females starting out on a lonely prairie trail with an Indian for guide. Even old Peter Crow's meek appearance did not quite reassure me; but I kept my qualms to myself, for I knew ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... a pass through the mountains, called Hell-Gate by the Flatheads, because through it rode the scalping parties of the Eastern tribes. Beyond is the sunny valley of the Bitter Root. It has long been settled by hardy trappers and hunters, and by comfortable farmers with well-stored barns and granaries and fenced fields. There is a charm ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various

... head be scraped wid a scalping-knife, an' me hands be made into furnace-grates for being away," ejaculated the servant, as the tears streamed down ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis

... miser's pleasure as he counts his gold. Then taking a pair of scissors from his pocket, he ran them over the girl's head with the quickness and skill of a barber, cutting close down, that he might not lose even the sixteenth part of an inch of her rich tresses. An Indian scalping his victim could not have shown more eagerness. An Indian's wild pleasure was in his face as he lifted the heavy mass of brown hair and held it above his head. It was not a trophy—not a sign of conquest and triumph over an enemy—but ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur

... (disappointed). They'd a splendid chance of scalping the Orator that time—and not one of them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... wealth of verbose ornamentation, is so easily imposed upon the public under the name of poetry, that so much really good poetry should be forgotten and unread. One is often provoked to regret that the scalping knife has become blunted in the hands of the "buff and blue," and that the race of useful parodists should seem to have expired with the wits of "Fraser." As a poet Griffin is comparatively little known; and yet, to make a seeming paradox, ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various

... leave them to be butchered; unable, therefore, to move in any direction, and so compelled to keep up a shelterless, hopeless fight until, one by one, he and his gallant fellows fell, pierced by Indian lead, and sacrificed to the scalping knife as were Custer's three hundred ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... the Indian trading house. It was divided into two rooms, the inner and larger one containing the stores—blankets, scalping knives, flints, twine, beads, needles, guns, powder and shot and other things too numerous to mention. To the outer room the Indians entered and through a square iron-barred hole they passed their furs and pelts, receiving ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon

... This triumph meant much to them. Their borders would now be safe, but for occasional scalping parties. Amherst was delighted, and took to himself much of the credit of Bouquet's victory. He congratulated the noble Swiss officer on his victory over 'a band of savages that would have been very formidable against any troops but such as you had with you.' But it was not ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... were very cruel in war. When they killed a man, they cut the skin and hair off the top of his head. This was called scalping. ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw

... than anything of which I ever dreamed," he said. "Now the tomahawk and the scalping knife will sweep the border from Canada ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... great chief-justice introduced to public life. He had come to serve, and found that he must instruct. When he marched with the regiment of these mountaineers, who carried tomahawks and scalping-knives, the people of Williamsburg trembled for their lives. At that time, the country near Harper's Ferry was the Far West. In a very little while, these mountaineers, by mingled stratagem and system, defeated Lord Dunmore, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... brought to an end the domination of the French on the Ohio, as Washington predicted, restoring peace to the frontier. Hostile Indians hastened to cast in their allegiance to the English, who had become conquerors, thus laying aside both tomahawk and scalping-knife, at ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... trousers or Indian leggings of blue cloth, cut off below the hips, with another cloth for the loins, and those that had no trousers had their legs painted. Embroidered blankets of blue or red cloth, moccasins, belts, tobacco-pouches, and cases for scalping-knives, all beaded, with glittering arms and tomahawks, hung about them everywhere, but the chief piece of finery was the war-bonnet; and a tremendous show it made. A turban of fur or scarlet cloth went round the head, adorned with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... like all imaginative children, she shrank. She, however, made preparation for the proposed flight by settling in her mind which of her two dolls she would take. A wooden creature with easy going knees and moveable hair seemed to be more fit for hard service and any indiscriminate scalping that might turn up hereafter. At supper, she timidly asked a question of Bridget. "Did ye ever hear the loikes uv that, Ma'am," said the Irish handmaid with affectionate pride, "Shure the darlint's head is filled noight and day with ancient history. She's after asking me now if Queen's ever ...
— The Queen of the Pirate Isle • Bret Harte

... ladies, I have no scalping knife with me, and I assure you that you will soon be able ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope

... half-drilled Militias, pulling each a different way, there is, as in the poor Mother Country, little result except of the St.-Vitus kind. In some Legislatures are anarchic Quakers, who think it unpermissible to fight with those hectoring French, and their tail of scalping Indians; and that the 'method of love' ought to be tried with them. What is to become of those poor people, if not even a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... attacked, except by surprise and treachery. In case of alarm such of the inhabitants as found time took refuge in them with their families, and left their dwellings to the flames; for the first thought of the settler was to put his women and children beyond reach of the scalping-knife. There were several of these asylums in different parts of Wells; and without them the place must have been abandoned. In the little settlement of York, farther westward, there were five of them, which had saved a part of ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman

... as he raised his head above the surrounding brushwood and stretched his neck in order to obtain a better view of the camp. Then slowly, inch by inch, almost with imperceptible motion, he crept forward until the whole of his gaunt form was revealed. A scalping-knife gleamed in his right hand. The camp was strewn with twigs, but these he removed one by one, carefully clearing each spot before he ventured to rest a knee upon it. While the savage was thus engaged, Larry O'Hale, who was nearest to him, sighed deeply ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne

... they hated the "Pale-faces" with bitter hatred, because their encroachments had at this time materially curtailed the extent of their hunting-grounds, and nothing but the numbers and known courage of the squatters prevented these savages from butchering and scalping them all. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... setting Joe once more at liberty, at the price of his queue, which was totally lost, and of the exposure of his raw and bleeding occiput. The operation was, indeed, of a mongrel description—somewhat between a complete tonsure and an imperfect scalping, to both of which denominations it certainly presented claims. However, it is an ill wind that blows nobody good! Bob Casey got the making of a skull-piece for Joe, and my brother French had the pleasure of paying for it, as gentlemen in those days honored any order given by a guest to the family ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... was one of the large sheath-knives which many of the recently arrived settlers had brought with them from their native land. Most of these differed a little in size and form from each other, but all of them were very different from the ordinary scalping-knives supplied by the fur-traders to the half-breeds ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne

... not quite certain whether the knife was wanted for the purpose of scalping him, or merely with a view of amputating the unruly member which had been the instrument of offence. "Well, take this one," said Nichols, handing him a five-bladed pocket-knife, with the large blade open, "go out and cut me a good ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens

... see Susan last night for the first time since we had our game; and I wish he had never come back, for he got me into an awful scrape. This was the way it happened. I was playing Indian in the yard. I had a wooden tomahawk and a wooden scalping-knife and a bownarrow. I was dressed up in father's old coat turned inside out, and had six chicken feathers in my hair. I was playing I was Green Thunder, the Delaware chief, and was hunting for pale-faces in the yard. ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... simpered out of the Beauty Parlor's display-case, a bust elaborately coiffured with pounds of yellow hair in which glittered rhinestone buckles. Hair of every sort and shade and length was clustered about her, as if she were the presiding genius of some barbarian scalping-cult. Seen at that hour, in the pale luster of the flashlight, this sorry plunder of lost teeth and dead hair made upon one a melancholy impression, disparaging to humanity. I had scant time to moralize on hair and teeth, however, for Flint was stopping ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... readily remove her upper garments, and by a swift movement she loosened her hair so that it fell about her to her knees,—the splendid Neville hair, still famous in the Province. There was no bounty then on English scalps, and the horror of the scalping knife was not threatened them. When the savages had made their task complete, they laughed in their victims' faces and retreated up the steep ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... of scurrility and abuse quite intolerable. He mistook, in too many instances, the manner for the matter; the shadow for the substance. He passed his criticisms, and dealt out his invectives, with so little ceremony, and so much venom, that he seemed born with a scalping knife in his hand to commit murder as long as he lived! To him, censure was sweeter than praise; and the more elevated the rank, and respectable the character of his antagonist, the more dexterously he aimed his blows, and ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... Birmingham and Sheffield manufactures into the Indian market, the weapons used in war and hunting were of an exceedingly primitive kind. Instead of rifles, scalping knives, tomahawks, and two-edged lances of polished steel, the North American brave possessed but a short bow made of bone with twisted sinews for strings, and a quiver of flint-tipped arrows, with ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... in America respectively as the "Live and let live" principle, and the "Dog eat dog" principle. There was until recently in existence in the United States one guild, or association, representing a purely parasitical trade—that of ticket-scalping—which was fortunately practically peculiar to the United States. This concern had deliberately adopted the legend "Dog eat dog" as its motto and two bull-dogs fighting as its crest; but in doing so its purpose was to proclaim that the guild was an Ishmaelite among business men and lived ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... a necessary and essential instinct of our very nature—an inborn and inextinguishable desire? How can creatures susceptible of pleasure and pain do otherwise than desire happiness? But, what happiness? That is the question. The American savage, in scalping his fallen enemy, pursues his happiness naturally and adequately. A Chickasaw, or Pawnee Bentham, or O. P. Q., would necessarily hope for the most frequent opportunities possible of scalping the greatest possible ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... of sheepskin and made of it a pair of very poor moccasins. He ground an old castaway putty knife into a scalping knife; the notch in it for breaking glass was an annoying defect until he remembered that some Indians decorate their weapons with a notch for each enemy it has killed, and this, therefore, might do duty as a kill-tally. He made ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the Marquesan was never guilty of torture of any kind. Though they slew and ate, they had none of the refinements of cruelty of the Romans, not even scalping enemies as did the Scythians, Visigoths, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons. In their most bloody wars they often paused in battle to give the enemy time to eat and to rest, and there is no record of their ever ringing a valley about with armed warriors and ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... had arrived just a few minutes too late to warn his friends. Although Bald Eagle was thus caught unprepared, he was not slow to meet the enemy. Before the latter had reached the village, all the fighting men were up, and armed with bows, scalping-knives, and tomahawks. They had even time to rush towards the foe, and thus prevent the fight from commencing in the midst of ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... cottage smiling in the waste, no travellers hailed us, to give life to silent nature; or, if perchance we saw the print of a footstep in our path, it was a dreadful warning to turn aside; and the head ached as if assailed by the scalping knife. The Indians who hovered on the skirts of the European settlements had only learned of their neighbours to plunder, and they stole their guns from them to ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft

... noted that in 1882 the selling of railway tickets by private persons, a practice known as 'ticket scalping,' was prohibited in Canada, though the railways were forced to buy the exclusive privilege of selling their own tickets by ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton

... venture, like a missionary among savages—but if I can only save you from their scalping knives—from the miseries which that lady is preparing for you, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... the most meritorious acts an Indian can perform, and is boasted of at his feasts among his other praiseworthy deeds. Next to scalping, it is the greatest feat of the Indian warrior. Before going out to war they pray to the Great Spirit to favour them, among other things, with ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... savage, half-Indian nature of many of the lower Southern troops, and the threats of scalping and mutilating, in which they so often indulged; and when we remember that even in Richmond, the body of John Brown's son is still exposed, as the label on it intimates, not as a scientific preparation, but as a warning to Abolitionists; we see ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... They fought Indians from one end of the island to the other, killing and scalping twenty-nine. They bathed in the quieter current on the other side, and they dried themselves in the sun, and in the sun they slept till they were burned red; and then just as they were thinking that it was time to go back to the camp and gather together their belongings ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... came over Our hills and swamps to clear, The woods were full of catamounts, And Indians red as deer, With tomahawks and scalping-knives, That make folks' heads look queer; Oh the ship from England used to bring A hundred wigs ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... the trench raid, which was developed through the winter of 1915, belongs to the Canadian. His plan was as simple as that of the American Indian who rushed a white settlement and fled after he was through scalping; or the cowboys who shot up a town; or the Mexican insurgents who descend upon a village for a brief visit of killing and looting. The Canadian proposed to enter the German trenches by surprise, remain long enough to make the most of the resulting ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... enemies, killing one outright and wounding another in the knee. All but one of the Chippewas had laid aside their guns, thinking that they were upon neutral ground. This one, seeing a Sioux in the act of scalping the fallen Chippewa, fired upon him and wounded him mortally. But aided by the dusk the wounded Sioux was able to run more than a mile before he ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... teeth of wild animals. They recognize some of the principles of natural law and observe them even with their enemies. They scalp usually only the dead,—then they cut it off with a sharp weapon and keep it as a sign of victory. Sometimes the victim comes to life,—some such are in Pennsylvania, for scalping is not necessarily mortal. They fight on foot, for they have no horses. The savages living in western Pennsylvania were called by the French Iroquois. The English call them the Five Nations or the Confederate ...
— Achenwall's Observations on North America • Gottfried Achenwall

... situation. The Bears profess to have no fear of this mysterious enemy, but it is a matter of fact that a multitude of shorts were driven ignominiously to cover on Tuesday last, when the Great Bull gathered in a long line of two million bushels in a single half hour. Scalping and eighth-chasing are almost entirely at an end, the smaller traders dreading to be caught on the horns of the Unknown. The new operator's identity has been carefully concealed, but whoever he is, he is a wonderful trader and is possessed of consummate nerve. It has ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris

... mounted a stump and, flapping his arms, crowed in victory. Before he had done the vanguard of the groom's friends were upon us, pell-mell, all in the finest of backwoods regalia,—new hunting shirts, trimmed with bits of color, and all armed to the teeth—scalping knife, tomahawk, and all. Nor had Chauncey Dike forgotten the scalp of the brave who leaped at him out of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... with pots and baskets—the young girls vying with each other, under the eyes of the youths, as to who could strip boughs the fastest—plucked gayly while the men, rifles in hand, kept guard. For these happy summer days were also the red man's scalping days and, at any moment, the chatter of the picnickers might be interrupted by the chilling war whoop. When that sound was heard, the berry pickers raced for the fort. The wild fruits—strawberries, service berries, cherries, plums, crab apples—were, however, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner

... off, and ran as if the whole set were at my heels. I think I just saved my scalp." And Louis put his hand to his head, and tugged his thick black curls, as if to ascertain that they were still safe from the scalping knives of ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... and in a lower voice said,—"It's as well to keep this sort of gentleman in front, or maybe he'll be afther shootin' one of us, an' stickin' his scalping-knife into ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... order. After an advance of about a hundred yards, a firing was heard in the rear, and the troops, seized with a panic, broke and fled in confusion, each man trying to save himself. The Indians came on rapidly in pursuit and plied the tomahawk and scalping-knife without mercy. Colonel Crawford and Dr. Knight were captured, at a distance from the main body—which was ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous

... the French, on the other hand, respected the truce little more than the Iroquois. The Abenaquis invaded the Agniers canton, and even penetrated to the English settlements, scalping several persons. The Iroquois of the Sault and of La Montagne did the like; but the Hurons of Michilimackinac, supposed to be those most averse to the war, did all they could, and most successfully, too, to prevent a peace ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson

... outstanding blue eyes, and he carried, and sometimes used as it was intended to be used, a heavy gold pince-nez, which more frequently, however, acted as a kind of lightning-conductor for the expression of his feelings. A pince-nez of many parts:—now it was a scalping-knife, slaughtering the hopes of some harried victim of the law; and again, it was a baton beating time to a hymn or the National Anthem; possibly it was, in moments of relaxation, a jester's wand poking ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham

... not protect thy rest. Thou shalt plant in terror, and I will reap in blood; thou shalt sow the earth with corn, and I will strew it with ashes; thou shalt go forth with the sickle, and I will follow after with the scalping-knife; thou shalt build, and I will burn,—till the white man or the Indian perish from the land. Go thy way for this time in safety,—but remember, stranger, there is eternal war between me ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... spot for a hunter. Every morning, from my threshold, I can shoot a deer, a bear, or a turkey. I can't abide living in a country where an honest man must toil a whole day for a mouthful of meat; it would never do for me. Down Blackey, down Judith, down dogs. Old boy, take the scalping-knife and skin the beast ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... with his coup stick—that man is his prisoner, and he has counted a coup. He slays an enemy, then rushes up and touches him with the stick, takes his scalp; another coup is counted. The credit of victory was taken for three brave deeds: killing an enemy, scalping an enemy, or being the first to strike an enemy, alive or dead; any one of these entitles a man to rank as a warrior and to recount his exploit in public; but to be the first to touch an enemy is regarded as the bravest deed of all, as it implied ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon

... with boxes and barrels, all containing relics of a by-gone age—such as broken swords, pistols of curious make, Revolutionary hand-saws, planes, cuirasses, broken spurs, blunderbusses, bowie, scalping, and hunting-knives; all of which he declares our great men have a use for. Hung on a little post, and over a pair of rather suspicious-looking buckskin breeches, is a rusty helmet, which he sincerely believes was worn by a knight of the days of William the Conqueror. A ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams

... repressed, here comes the Irrepressible Red! HIAWATHA is cutting up a great variety of capers as well as of unfortunate settlers. Should you ask us why this bloodshed, Why this scalping and this burning, Why this conduct most disgraceful, Why these crimes of the Piegans, Why this sending forth of soldiers, Why the perils of the railway, known as and called the way Pacific, (which it won't be if these ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various

... and no doubt the Indians will take kindly to the barbers and pay them much attention even if their tommyhawks and scalping knives are ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott

... require desperate remedies," was the reply; "there is little glory in destroying a helpless enemy, but the necessity is urgent, and we must leave nothing to chance." As he spoke, he knelt upon the huge form of the senseless warrior, whose scalping knife he drew from its sheath, and striking a firm and steady blow, quitted not the weapon until he felt his hand reposing on the chest ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... Rose Nott had been more than once shadowed by scalping-knives, and she was acquainted with Death. She went fearlessly to the couch, and found that the dressing-gown was only an enwrapping of the emaciated and lifeless body of De Ferrieres. She did not ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... as soon as known. At the evening prayer-meetings the laying on of hands would be followed by a sort of fit, in which the enthusiasts would fall apparently lifeless on the floor, or contort their faces, creep on their hands or knees, imitate the Indian process of killing and scalping, and chase balls ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... for the patriot cause set the interior aflame. It was the members of the western vanguard, like Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and George Rogers Clark, who first understood the value of the far-away country under the guns of the English forts, where the Red Men still wielded the tomahawk and the scalping knife. It was they who gave the East no rest until their vision was seen by the leaders on the seaboard who directed the course of national policy. It was one of their number, a seasoned Indian fighter, George Rogers Clark, who with aid from Virginia seized Kaskaskia and Vincennes ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... were in reality serious citizens of Boston, men of standing, wealth, and good repute, wearers of names that had long been known and honored in the Commonwealth. The frightful paint, the gaudy feathers, the moccasins and wampum, the tomahawks, scalping-knives, and pistols that seemed so alarming to the peaceful captains of the boarded ships were but the fantastic accoutrements that concealed the placid faces and the portly persons of many a respectable and ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... thoughtful essay,[292] is no longer equipped to play this domineering part in relation to his wife. The "noble savage," leading a wild life on mountain and in forest, hunting dangerous beasts and scalping enemies when necessary, may occasionally bring his club gently and effectively on to the head of his wife, even, it may be, with grateful appreciation on her part.[293] But the modern man, who for the most part spends his days tamely at a desk, who has been trained to endure ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... meadow where men were making hay, accompanied by some children. One Ebenezer Hawks, shooting partridges, came so near the ambushed warriors that they could not resist the temptation of killing and scalping him. This alarmed the haymakers and the children, who ran for their lives towards a mill on a brook that entered Deerfield River, fiercely pursued by about fifty Indians, who caught and scalped a boy named Amsden. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman

... war Loudoun, the Commander-in-Chief in America, had vowed that the British would make the French "sick of such inhuman villainy" and teach them to respect "the laws of nature and humanity." Washington speaks of his "deadly sorrow" at the dreadful outrages which he saw, the ravishing of women, the scalping alive even of children. Philadelphians had seen the grim spectacle of a wagon-load of corpses brought by mourning friends and relatives of the dead and laid down at the door of the Assembly to show to pacifist legislators what was really happening. The French regular officers, as ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong

... with a pair of waist-high boots, and a scalping knife, I think," answered Leslie. "Are you going to bring a blanket ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter

... stated that the Indians were in open rebellion, and that blood was likely to be shed. It was reported and believed among us that he said we had armed ourselves, and were prepared to carry all before us with tomahawk and scalping knife; that death and destruction, and all the horrors of a savage war, were impending; that of the white inhabitants some were already dead, and the rest dreadfully alarmed! An awful ...
— Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts - Relative to the Marshpee Tribe: or, The Pretended Riot Explained • William Apes

... probably not go with her. It was a letter that would send a man out with a scalping-knife. Still, if Mr. Crozier had his land-deal through he might not read the letter as it really is. His brain wouldn't then be ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Man's dogma has proved vain as his philosophy. Age after age has composed some vision of continued life, and sought to allay its fear or sorrow with suitable imaginations. Mummies of death outlive their granite; vermilion and the scalping-knife lie ready for the happy hunting grounds; beside the royal carcass two score of concubines and warriors are buried quick; Walhalla rings with clashing swords whose wounds close up again at sunset; heroes tread the fields of shadowy asphodel, and on Elysian plains attenuated ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson

... Here's the Governor writing me they'll be scalping him in the State-House at twelve o'clock. It's past 11.30. They'll be whetting knives about now." ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... tribe the result of their confab, and they came forward, to a man, and laid down their rifles, tomahawks and scalping ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... contented with putting him to immediate death, they torture him by every means of cruelty that their invention can frame, as drawing out his bowels, tearing off his nails, scalping, and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... rabble in calico petticoats," as a term of contempt. Their uniform consisted of tow linen or homespun hunting shirts, buckskin breeches, leggings and moccasins. They wore round felt hats, looped on one side and ornamented with a buck tail. They carried long rifles, shot pouches, tomahawks, and scalping knives. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... keenly than ever, and signified their resentment in ways consistent with their instincts and traditions. In 1640 an army of them fell upon the colony in Staten Island, and slaughtered them, man, woman and child, with the familiar Indian accessories of tomahawk, scalping-knife and torch. The Staten Islanders, it should be stated, had done nothing to merit this treatment; but Indian logic interprets the legal maxim "Qui facit per alium, facit per se," as meaning that if one white man ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... raised his tomahawk to strike her. She instantly sprang aside, and the blow intended for her head, fell upon her shoulders. She thereupon seized him around his neck, and, while exerting all her efforts to get possession of his scalping knife, was seized by another Indian and dragged forcibly from his grasp. The latter bore her, struggling and resisting, toward the lake. Notwithstanding, however, the rapidity with which she was hurried along, she recognized, as she passed, the form of the unfortunate doctor ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... frock being of linsey-woolsey; the breeches and leggings of deerskin; and the moccasins, in place of boots of the same material. Around his waist passed a belt; wherein, instead of pistols, were confined a tomahawk and scalping knife—two weapons which were considered as indispensable to the regular white hunter of that day as to the Indian ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett

... on the massacre and scalping of the whites by Indians, in order to inflame the American mind against England; his fictions recorded ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... the disaster. The Sisters Mudie-Cooke (of course it would be their tent that had gone) were now hidden from sight under the heavy mass of wet canvas on top of them. The F.A.N.Y.s, their hair flying in the wind, looking more like Red Indians on a scalping expedition than a salvage party, soon extricated them, and they were taken, with what clothes could be rescued, to another tent. Their fate, "Squig" assured me, would have assuredly been ours had ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... his shoulders; and, at every turn, he halted, listening, with his ear turned toward his home; for well he knew that, any moment, the scream of his wife, or the wail of his children, might tell of the up-lifted tomahawk, or the murderous scalping-knife. ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... possession had given the French an absolute control over the Indians of the Ohio, who were accustomed to assemble at that place, for the purpose of making their destructive incursions into those colonies. Their route was marked by fire and the scalping knife; and neither age nor sex could afford exemption from their ferocity. The expulsion of the French gave the English entire possession of the country, and produced a complete revolution in the disposition ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... midnight secrecy. Supplied with ammunition, the Cherokees, led by this Captain Stuart or some other, were first to fall upon the over-mountain settlements. These laid waste, the Indians were to form a junction with the army of invasion, and so to add the torch and tomahawk and scalping knife to ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... was to enter. The rest halted at the door and others came straggling up, until the whole party, to the number of twenty-three, were gathered in front. They were armed with bows and arrows, tomahawks, scalping-knives, and a few had guns. All were painted and dressed for war, having a savage and fierce appearance. Mr. Miller recognized among them some of the very fellows who had robbed him the preceding year, and put his comrades on their guard. Every man stood ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... how he had tracked the Monachans to a hill above the river, and how he and his war party had fallen upon them, driving them down the steep banks, slaying and scalping, even swimming into the icy water to seize those who sought to escape. And The Powhatan nodded in approval, uttering now and again a word of praise. When Opechanchanough had finished his recital the shaman, or medicine-man, rose and sang a song of praise about the ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson



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