Torture, Mutilation, & Cannibalism - Oh My!

Men are men and it is folly to pretend that we do not do horrible things to one another. Regardless of the civilization or time period, we are capable of much goodness. Yet man will simultaneously perform grotesque or downright evil acts. Asian civilizations? Check. African? Check. European? Yes. On and on.

Which brings me to our topic today. In recent decades it has become fashionable to pretend that the Western Hemisphere was a type of Utopia before the arrival of European explorers or settlers. Books, movies, and blog posts all show some type of paradise that experienced only abundance and peace before 1492. Thereafter, any conflict arose solely because of the newcomers.

My aim today is not to do a complete 180-degree shift and point at the American Indians as the sole source of strife between themselves and colonists. No. It is rather to remind us that all of humanity can be quite inhumane. After all, I’m fairly certain that enemies of the state in Medieval Europe had to worry about being drawn and quartered at the drop of a hat. And so, in no particular order what follows is a listing of rather terrible things done by American Indians to each other and their European and even African adversaries.

Cannibalism – The Carib tribes of, well, the Caribbean were famous as cannibals. They spent much effort attacking neighboring islands and tribes like the Lucayans, hauling off prisoners as tasty morsels. It is one of the reasons that some of the weaker tribes of those Equatorial lands welcomed Europeans as allies against their fierce, hungry rivals.

And cannibalism wasn’t exclusive to the islands. It was practiced in South America and, probably as a surprise to some readers, in North America, as well. Scores of contemporary accounts from the 1600s, 1700s, and even 1800s written by both allies and by enemies describe in rather graphic detail how prisoners were sometimes boiled or roasted and then consumed by tribesmen like nothing more than a hearty brunch. These atrocities happened with regularity during the French & Indian War in what are now modern-day New York, Canada, Ohio, Georgia, and everywhere around and in between.

Torture – Famously, some prisoners taken back to villages were adopted into the tribe to compensate for battlefield losses. Women were given no choice in becoming the wife of a brave and bearing him children. Such women might be considered fortunate.

Mankind is ingenious at developing ways to harm or slowly kill each other. The tribesmen of North America were no exception. Just a brief list includes making men run the famous gauntlet, receiving blow after blow until death saved them. It was kind of like stoning, only the victim had to run toward the blow.

Some prisoners were tied between two young trees that had been bent inward toward them. Then, as the trees’ natural shapes tugged and the man’s strength gave out, shoulders, elbows, and wrists were dislocated. They were left there to die.

Prisoners were tied to the ground, stretched out in the sun and had hot coals from fire poured all over their naked flesh. A slow, anguishing death was the result.

Several accounts tell of a captive tied between to roaring fires, careful so that he didn’t catch fire himself. He was painfully roasted alive. When his screams became annoying to his dancing opponents, one of the tribesmen raced between the fires and lopped off the victim’s genitals. It was still many minutes before the whimpering man succumbed.

Bringing us to mutilation – specifically, scalping. To harvest a man’s scalp, a tribesman would flip the victim onto his belly. Then, with a moccasin planted between the shoulder blades, he’d grab a hunk of hair. Finally, starting at the front of the man’s skull, he’d carve his knife into the skin and yank, peeling away a warm, oozing hunk of hair and flesh.

Recently, some historians have argued that scalping was a European invention. To be direct, this is nonsense. I’m sure someone can produce archeological or historical evidence that someone, somewhere in Europe scalped another. And there are definitely records that show Europeans, too, engaged in the barbaric behavior in North America. But we do have ample archeological evidence of widespread scalping in America before the arrival of Europeans. Then, when written records of such atrocities began, we have scads of accounts of scalping both living and dead individuals by tribesman for glory and for pay. And if you were scalped while alive, you’d be dead in a few days.

It is important to note that all of these dreadful activities were an accepted part of the culture.

It makes me wonder what accepted activities in our modern culture are just as wrong today and always – but overlooked for our own convenience.

Until next time!

New World Scalping.