How do you die from scalping

He was found alive and transported to Dr. Thacher described one form of the Native American scalping procedure. To Dr. The history of treating scalping injuries is murky. In the s Augustin Belloste, a French surgeon, explained that some sort of surgery had to take place in order for the wound to heal as the skin could not regenerate on its own because the skull was very smooth.

The first recorded treatment was to use a rasp to puncture the diploe and roughen the surface of the skull. The diploe, the area between two layers of compact bone containing red bone marrow, had to be reached in order for new skin to grow. According to Belloste, the rasp method was undesirable for a number of reasons.

First, the friction from scraping the rasp across hard bone produced heat and altered the formation of the skull. Further, rasping thinned the bone and was painful. There were also cases where scalps, if immediately recovered, were replaced on the skull of the victim. These cases apparently were very rare. If the scalped head was left untreated the exposed bone would eventually become necrotic and separate from the healthy bone or it could cause osteomyelitis, an inflammation of the bone and marrow.

Either of these conditions would be fatal. However, the man was not treated and died less than a year later. James Robertson was a pioneer not a medical doctor. And if they did, it had the desired effect on their enemies. He was actually just a working-class, regular joe. His job was fixing telegraph wires along the Union-Pacific Railroad in Nebraska. One day, he was just chugging along to his work when his train was attacked by a band of Cheyenne warriors. He lost his scalp, all the same, but he survived the gunshot wound and the scalping the Cheyenne inflicted on him.

When the man awoke, he could see his blood-splattered hair tuft sitting next to him. He did what any of us would do if we just lost part of our head: he picked it up and tried to put it back on.

Consequently, the French and English finished by giving only a trifling amount in the form of presents. In it he explains that "large publick Rewards for Scalps given by Provincial Laws to Indians, are attended with very pernicious Consequences to his Majesty's Service. The first involved a single Chicasaw an ally to the English "who was coming up this Way with the Cherokees, was killed by them when asleep; and a single Creek in their Company had like to have shared the same fate.

As no Cause of Quarrel is pretended the Motive could only be in their Scalps. Should he be killed, there would be another National Quarrel with the Tuskeroras. Another interesting aspect of this lucrative act was also introduced by Atkins; that of dividing single scalps. He also added "the Cherokees in particular have got the Art of making 4 Scalps out of one man killed.

Here are now 20 Scalps hanging out to publick View, which are well known to have been made out of 5 Frenchmen killed. Louis Antoine de Bougainville, aide-de-camp to the Marquis de Montcalm, recorded in his journal under the date of July 24, , that "the English had eleven men killed and four wounded, two of whom since died of their wounds.

The Indians, however, brought back thirty-two scalps; they know how to make two or even three out of one.

Father Roubaud, remarked about the French allied Native Americans "engaged in counting the number of barbarous trophies - that is to say, the English scalps - with which the canoes were decorated" after the massacre of New Jersey soldiers on Lake George in July, Francis, two years later, that Major Robert Rogers "found.

Atkins said he was "well assured Lord Loudoun detests that practice, and that the French General Moncalm in Canada does the same. Many think, as Montcalm wrote in a letter, that it was "an operation from which you usually die, as is only natural and proper.

Weyman's New York Gazette, for July 30, , carried an article proclaiming that "as a proof that many persons have survived after being scalped, we can assure our readers, that four Highlanders are lately arrived from America, in order for admission into Chelsea Hospital, who had been scalped and left for dead.

Each case is interesting and gives insight into the horrors faced by these unfortunates, as well as others who did not survive. The New York Mercury reported that about June 8th, , "two of our battoes were attacked on their way up the Mohawk's River, by a party of the enemy,.

The same party a day or two after scalped a woman, and carried off a child and a servant that were in company, between Fort Johnson and Schenectady; the woman lived 'til she got into Schenectady, tho' in great agony. A fascinating scalping incident occurred as the siege of the English forts at Oswego, NY, were about to commence. In May, , French allied Indians skulked about the forts to inflict what casualties they could.

Stephen Cross, a shipbuilder from Massachusetts, records on May 25th that "one of our soldiers came in from the edge of the woods, where it seems he had lain all night having been out on the evening party the day before and got drunk and could not get in, and not being missed, but on seeing him found he had lost his scalp, but he could not tell how nor when, having no others around.

We supposed the Indians had stumbled over him in the dark, and supposed him dead, and taken off his scalp. The harrowing experience of Lieutenant Peter Wooster of Captain David Baldwin's Company of Colonel Nathan Whiting's Second Connecticut Regiment is reported as follows: "Lieutenant Wooster of the Connecticut Forces, who was wounded in Rogers' skirmish, is yet alive and likely to recover, no pains being spared to effect it, as the surgeons are extremely fond of making a cure of so extraordinary a case, which is this, he being in the front with Major Putnam, or not far in his rear, the enemy fired upon him, 8 bullets lodged in him, 3 of which are taken out; he had also three wounds by a tomahawk, two of which were on his head, and the other in his elbow, his head was flayed, almost the hair part off.

He was sensible all the while the enemy were scalping him, and finding him wounded in so many places he could not run, and the enemy close upon him, he fell on his face and feigned himself dead, and no doubt but the enemy thought he actually was; however they gave him two blows on his head, but not so hard as to deprive him of his senses, and then scalped him, during all which time he made not the least resistance.

James Axtell and William C. Sylvester K.