"Scalping" knives

[Pict]

Pict - funnily enough, Wyoming is my "dream state" - the place I would choose to live above all others if given half a chance! Sounds like it has its dark history too, though, like most places I guess. Cheers for posting mate!

Pete

Wyoming is a dream state for sure, but this "Wyoming Valley" is in north eastern Pennsylvania. The massacre took place in 1778 during that little dust up over staying a colony/being a nation. If it happened today it would probably be termed ethnic cleansing though the divisions were mainly political.

Mac

 

[Draven]

Wyoming is a dream state for sure, but this "Wyoming Valley" is in north eastern Pennsylvania. The massacre took place in 1778 during that little dust up over staying a colony/being a nation. If it happened today it would probably be termed ethnic cleansing though the divisions were mainly political.

Mac

Well that's embarassing I was born in Maryland too, with family all round the area - originally at least, most of them have moved around - so it's practically local history!

Pete

 

[Pict]

"Well that's embarassing"

Only if you descend from NY Tories.

Mac

 

[John Fenna]

History is always written by the winners - the Tories, had they won, may have recorded things differently........

 

[sandbender]

"...There is some reference here on Wikipedia that says much the same thing..."

Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, easily the most violent work of fiction I have ever read, begins with the following quotation...

Clark, who led last year's expedition to the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, and UC Berkeley colleague Tim D. White, also said that a re-examination of a 300,000-year-old fossil skull found in the same region earlier shows evidence of having been scalped. THE YUMA DAILY SUN June 13,1982 ​

Older than both the Europeans and the Native Americans.

 

[Pict]

History is always written by the winners - the Tories, had they won, may have recorded things differently........

I have no doubt that's true. The Tories and their Indian allies certainly hadn't cornered the market on atrocity in that fight. Such things had been going on long before that massacre and continued west for a long time after.

To the original point as to if there was a designated "scalping knife", among traditional American blades of the period I know of no particular blade style that was singled out for scalping. References to "scalping knives" in reports from the time, I believe, refer to the use rather than the style of the knives being carried. Mac

 

[Draven]

I'll need to dig out my mom's family records, I'm curious now! She did a lot of research into our ancestry so I've no doubt I'll be able to go back quite a ways on her side at least...

Pete