INDIANS AND SCALPS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2499, 24 March 1881, Page 4

INDIANS AND SCALPS.

These subjects are thus philosophically treated by the “New York Times” :—“ Probably the most objectionable characteristic of the Indian, in the estimation of young or middleaged people, is his passion for extraneous hair. You may convert an Indian, civilise him, wash him, and teach him the uses of poker, but he will still retain his hankering for your hair. The Indians who from time to time visit Washington in order to be sentenced to have their lands confiscated, or, as the process is more elegantly termed, to make a treaty with the Government, gaze with longing eyes on the hair of the women of the the capital. Blankets, rifles, and even whisky lose their interest for the red man who has seen a Washington woman with her best hair on. It is said that several important Indian treaties have been negotiated solely through the astuteness of an Indian agent, who, bribed obstinate chiefs, with artificial female scalps made to order by a Washington hair dealer, and represented to be the scalps of Queens whom the Great Father at Washington had defeated in battle. So bent is even the most peaceful on the acquisition of hair, that the Government has for many years refused, except for very strong reasons, to appoint any but bald-headed men to positions as indian agents. As a matter of fact, no bald-headed agent has ever been killed by his Indian wards, and those unhappy agents who have fallen beneath the hostile tomahawk have rushed upon their fate by foolishly flaunting their hair in the faces of the covetous savages. When an Indian has taken a scalp, he preserves it with the utmost care, and bequeaths it in his will to his sons as a precious hair-loom. He is never known to put hts scalps to any practical use, but regards them solely as decorative objects which form a necessary part of the Wigwam Beautiful. He hangs them on the wall, as if they were pictures, or puts them on shelves, like choice crockery. The Indian who has the largest and finest collection of scalps in the tribe, is universally regarded as a savage who confers honour on his reservation, and is spoken of after his death by the local aboriginal press as one whose efforts to educate the artinstincts of his neighbors had made him a public benefactor. Since the time when the earliest settlers of this country began to fight with the Indians, there has been a flow of scalps towards the Indian wigwams. This flow has been sometimes temporarily interrupted one of these exceptional treaties, which the white men have occasionally forgotten to break within a month after its signature ; but, on the other hand, a prosperous campaign against the settlers of the states of the border has filled hundreds of wigwams with a wealth of scalps. There must now be preserved among private Indians,and in the Sioux, Crow, and Apache art galleries, nearly 500,000 scalps, most of them in excellent preservation.