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- Title
SCALPING IN NORTH AMERICA AND WESTERN SIBERIA: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SIBERIA: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE.
- Authors
Borodovsk, A. P.; Tabarev, A. V.
- Abstract
The article presents a study on scalping, a ritual of removing the skin covered with hair from the head of the defeated person or captured enemy, in Eurasia. Historically, scalping rite has been practiced in North America by various tribes and unions from the West Indies, Mexico and Guatemala. It was believed that scalping of the defeated or captured enemy was regarded as the acquisition of prowess. Aside from its symbolic meaning, scalping was also believed as a medical practice by the Navaho people. Toothache, headache and even head injury is said to get cured by chewing a piece of scalp. Moreover, scalping is also viewed as an object of magic belief for the Arikara tribes, in which they conceived that a person who had survived the scalping was nonhuman.
- Subjects
EURASIA; NORTH America; SCALPING (Mutilation); SCALP; RITUAL; RITES &; ceremonies; SUPERSTITION; NAVAJO (North American people); ARIKARA (North American people)
- Publication
Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia (Springer Science & Business Media B.V.), 2005, Vol 21, Issue 1, p87
- ISSN
1563-0110
- Publication type
Article