Scalping
Encyclopedia
Scalp
The scalp is the anatomical area bordered by the face anteriorly and the neck to the sides and posteriorly.-Layers:It is usually described as having five layers, which can conveniently be remembered as a mnemonic:...
or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war. Eventually, the act became motivated primarily for financial reasons; people received payment per scalp they acquired.
Scalping is often associated with frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
warfare in North America, and was practiced by Native Americans
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, colonists, and frontiersmen across centuries of violent conflict. Some Mexican (e.g., Sonora and Chihuahua) and American territories (e.g., Arizona) paid bounties
Bounty (reward)
A bounty is a payment or reward often offered by a group as an incentive for the accomplishment of a task by someone usually not associated with the group. Bounties are most commonly issued for the capture or retrieval of a person or object. They are typically in the form of money...
for enemy Native American scalps. Contrary to popular belief, scalping was far from universal amongst Native Americans.
Scythia
Scalping was practiced by the ancient ScythiaScythia
In antiquity, Scythian or Scyths were terms used by the Greeks to refer to certain Iranian groups of horse-riding nomadic pastoralists who dwelt on the Pontic-Caspian steppe...
ns of Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
historian
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, wrote of the Scythians in 440 BC
440 BC
Year 440 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Macerinus and Lanatus...
:
The Scythian soldier scrapes the scalp clean of flesh and softening it by rubbing between their hands, uses it thenceforth as a napkin. The Scyth is proud of these scalps and hangs them from his bridle rein; the greater the number of such napkins that a man can show, the more highly is he esteemed among them. Many make themselves cloaks by sewing a quantity of these scalps together.
Levant
The second book2 Maccabees
2 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book of the Bible, which focuses on the Jews' revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes and concludes with the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in 161 BC by Judas Maccabeus, the hero of the work....
of the Maccabees
Maccabees
The Maccabees were a Jewish rebel army who took control of Judea, which had been a client state of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel and reducing the influence...
(ca. 67-37 BC) describes the practice of scalping of living captives in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
.
Western and Eastern Europe
Scalps were taken in wars between the Visigoths, the FranksFranks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
, and the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
in the 9th century, according to the writings of Abbé Emmanuel H. D. Domenech. His sources included the decalvare of the ancient Germans, the capillos et cutem detrahere of the code of the Visigoths, and the Annals of Flodoard
Flodoard
-Biography:He was born at Épernay, and educated at Reims in the cathedral school which had been established by Archbishop Fulcon .As canon of Reims, and favourite of the archbishops Herivaeus and Seulfus -Biography:He was born at Épernay, and educated at Reims in the cathedral school which had...
.
In the 4th century, Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus was a fourth-century Roman historian. He wrote the penultimate major historical account surviving from Antiquity...
described scalping by the Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
, a nomadic people of Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
origin and the ancestors of the Ossetians
Ossetians
The Ossetians are an Iranic ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, eponymous of the region known as Ossetia.They speak Ossetic, an Iranian language of the Eastern branch, with most also fluent in Russian as a second language....
(scalping being still remembered in Ossetian folklore).
According to Friedrich von Adelung
Friedrich von Adelung
Friedrich von Adelung , was a German-Russian linguist, historian and bibliographer. His best known works are in the fields of bibliography of Sanskrit language and the European accounts of the Time of Troubles in Russia....
, scalping was also practiced by several Slavic tribes in the 10th century.
North America
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
practiced scalping, in some instances up until the end of the 19th century. According to Haines and Steckel (2000), "Probably the most dramatic skeletal example of prehistoric violence in North America comes from the Crow Creek site
Crow Creek massacre
The Crow Creek massacre occurred around 1325 between Indian groups in the South Dakota area. Crow Creek Site, the site of the massacre near Chamberlain, is an archaeological site and a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Located at co-ordinates 43°58′48″N 99°19′54″W. It is thought that either Middle...
in central South Dakota
South Dakota
South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...
. Archaeological excavations revealed about 486 skeletons within a fortification ditch on the periphery of the habitation area. The site represents the Initial Coalescent period and dates to about 1325 A.D. P. Willey's analysis revealed that 90% of the individuals had cut marks characteristic of scalping."
In the 1710s and 1720s, the French colonial authorities engaged in frontier warfare with the Natchez people
Natchez people
The Natchez are a Native American people who originally lived in the Natchez Bluffs area, near the present-day city of Natchez, Mississippi. They spoke a language isolate that has no known close relatives, although it may be very distantly related to the Muskogean languages of the Creek...
and the Meskwaki people
Meskwaki
The Meskwaki are a Native American people often known to outsiders as the Fox tribe. They have often been closely linked to the Sauk people. In their own language, the Meskwaki call themselves Meshkwahkihaki, which means "the Red-Earths." Historically their homelands were in the Great Lakes region...
.
During Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War
Queen Anne's War , as the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession was known in the British colonies, was the second in a series of French and Indian Wars fought between France and England, later Great Britain, in North America for control of the continent. The War of the...
, by 1703, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was offering $60 for each native scalp. During Dummer's War
Dummer's War
Dummer's War , also known as Lovewell's War, Father Rale's War, Greylock's War, the Three Years War, the 4th Indian War or the Wabanaki-New England War of 1722–1725, was a series of battles between British settlers of the three northernmost British colonies of North America of the time and the...
(c. 1721–1725), British colonial authorities offered £100 per Indian scalp – which adjusted for inflation would be about US $20,000 (£14,000) in present-day money. Ranger John Lovewell
John Lovewell (Junior)
John Lovewell was a famous Ranger in the 18th century who fought during Dummer's War . He lived in present-day Nashua, New Hampshire...
is known to have conducted scalp-hunting expeditions, the most famous happening in New Hampshire on 25 Feb 1725.
During King George's War
King George's War
King George's War is the name given to the operations in North America that formed part of the War of the Austrian Succession . It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in the British provinces of New York, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and Nova Scotia...
, in response to repeated massacres of British families by the French and their native allies, Governor of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
William Shirley
William Shirley
William Shirley was a British colonial administrator who served twice as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and as Governor of the Bahamas in the 1760s...
reluctantly issued a bounty for the scalps of Indian men, women, and children (1744).
During Father Le Loutre's War
Father Le Loutre's War
Father Le Loutre’s War , also known as the Indian War, the Micmac War and the Anglo-Micmac War, took place between King George's War and the French and Indian War in Acadia and Nova Scotia. On one side of the conflict, the British and New England colonists were led by British Officer Charles...
and the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
in Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
and Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
, French colonists
French colonization of the Americas
The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued in the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, and in South America...
offered payments to Indians for British scalps. In 1749, British Governor Edward Cornwallis
Edward Cornwallis
Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis was a British military officer who founded Halifax, Nova Scotia with 2500 settlers and later served as the Governor of Gibraltar.-Early life:...
offered payment to New England Rangers for Indian scalps. Both the Mi'kmaq people and the British killed combatants and non-combatants (i.e., women, children and infants). During the French and Indian War
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
, Governor of Nova Scotia Charles Lawrence also offered a reward for male Mi'kmaq scalps in 1756.
French and Indian War
The French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
, in June 12, 1755, Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips of Massachusetts Bay colony was offering a bounty of £40 for a male Indian scalp, and £20 for scalps of females or of children under 12 years old. In 1756, Pennsylvania Governor Morris, in his Declaration of War against the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) people, offered "130 Pieces of Eight
Pieces of Eight
Pieces of Eight is the eighth studio album and second concept album by Styx, released September 1, 1978.The album was the band's follow-up to their Triple Platinum selling The Grand Illusion album....
, for the Scalp of Every Male Indian Enemy, above the Age of Twelve Years," and "50 Pieces of Eight for the Scalp of Every Indian Woman, produced as evidence of their being killed."
In the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant-governor of Province of Quebec (1763-1791)
Province of Quebec (1763-1791)
The Province of Quebec was a colony in North America created by Great Britain after the Seven Years' War. Great Britain acquired Canada by the Treaty of Paris when King Louis XV of France and his advisors chose to keep the territory of Guadeloupe for its valuable sugar crops instead of New France...
, was known by American Patriots
Patriot (American Revolution)
Patriots is a name often used to describe the colonists of the British Thirteen United Colonies who rebelled against British control during the American Revolution. It was their leading figures who, in July 1776, declared the United States of America an independent nation...
as the "hair-buyer general" because they believed he encouraged and paid his Native American allies to scalp American settlers. When Hamilton was captured in the war by the colonists, he was treated as a war criminal instead of a prisoner of war
Prisoner of war
A prisoner of war or enemy prisoner of war is a person, whether civilian or combatant, who is held in custody by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict...
because of this. However, American historians have conceded that there was no positive proof that he had ever offered rewards for scalps. It is now assumed that during the American Revolution, no British officer paid for scalps.
Supposedly, General Custer
George Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
(who was known for his hair) was not scalped after the Battle of the Little Bighorn
Battle of the Little Bighorn
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and, by the Indians involved, as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, was an armed engagement between combined forces of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho people against the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army...
because he was deemed filthy in the eyes of the Sioux – to lay hands on him would sully the hands of the warrior.
Some scalping incidents even occurred during the American Civil War; for example, Confederate guerrillas led by Bloody Bill Anderson were well known for decorating their saddles with the scalps of Union soldiers they had killed. Archie Clement
Archie Clement
Archie Clement , a.k.a "Little Arch", was a pro-Confederate guerrilla leader in the American Civil War, known for his brutality towards Union soldiers and pro-Union civilians in Missouri.-Little Archie, the bushwhacker:...
had the reputation of being Anderson’s “chief scalper”.
In motion pictures, popular literature, and entertainment
The act of scalping featured prominently in some WesternsWestern (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
such as the 1966 Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
spaghetti western
Spaghetti Western
Spaghetti Western, also known as Italo-Western, is a nickname for a broad sub-genre of Western films that emerged in the mid-1960s in the wake of Sergio Leone's unique and much copied film-making style and international box-office success, so named by American critics because most were produced and...
Navajo Joe
Navajo Joe
Navajo Joe is a 1966 Italian/Spanish Spaghetti Western, directed by Sergio Corbucci. It was filmed in Spain.Navajo Joe stars Burt Reynolds in his second leading role in a feature film, as the titular character, a Navajo Indian opposing a group of bandits responsible for killing his tribe.The film's...
which opens with an Indian massacre in which a white profiteer scalps an Indian woman, and the 1990 film Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...
which shows Pawnee Indians with scalps hanging from their bow or lance and Timmons, the teamster is scalped after being ambushed by the Pawnee. The Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...
novel Blood Meridian is about a group of mercenaries making a living off Indian scalps and references the activity extensively, and in Karl May
Karl May
Karl Friedrich May was a popular German writer, noted mainly for adventure novels set in the American Old West, and similar books set in the Orient and Middle East . In addition, he wrote stories set in his native Germany, in China and in South America...
's novels the character Sam Hawkins had been scalped by Indian warriors and survives. The first work in the Lonesome Dove series
Lonesome Dove series
The Lonesome Dove series refers to a series of four western novels written by Larry McMurtry and the four television mini-series based upon them.-Novels:# Lonesome Dove # Streets of Laredo # Dead Man's Walk...
, Dead Man's Walk
Dead Man's Walk
Dead Man's Walk is a 1995 novel by Larry McMurtry. It is the third book published in the Lonesome Dove series, but the first installment in terms of chronology. McMurtry wrote a fourth segment to the Lonesome Dove chronicle, Comanche Moon, which describes the events of the central characters' lives...
features a scalping, as does James Carlos Blake
James Carlos Blake
James Carlos Blake is an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards...
's In the Rogue Blood. Likewise, George Macdonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser
George MacDonald Fraser, OBE was an English-born author of Scottish descent, who wrote both historical novels and non-fiction books, as well as several screenplays.-Early life and military career:...
's antihero, Harry Flashman, observes scalping and is himself partially scalped in Flashman and the Redskins
Flashman and the Redskins
Flashman and the Redskins is a 1982 novel by George MacDonald Fraser. It is the seventh of the Flashman novels.-Plot introduction:Presented within the frame of the supposed discovery of a trunkful of papers detailing the long life and career of a Victorian officer, this series centres around...
. Titus Bass, the protagonist of Terry Johnston’s
Terry C. Johnston
Terry C. Johnston was an American Western fiction author who wrote over 30 novels and had more than 10 million books in print....
nine historical novels about the Rocky Mountain fur trade, survives being scalped. Even the children's novel Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
by J.M. Barrie features a description of a "Redskin" scalper: "In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress." Henry Frapp (Brian Keith
Brian Keith
Brian Keith was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney family film The Parent Trap, the 1966 comedy The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, and the 1975 adventure saga The Wind and...
) is scalped offscreen in the 1980 film The Mountain Men
The Mountain Men
The Mountain Men is a 1980 Adventure/Western film starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith.-Plot:Charlton Heston stars as an argumentative, curmudgeonly mountain man by the name of Bill Tyler. His co-star, Brian Keith, in the role of Henry Frapp, is Bill's good friend and fellow trapper...
and survives the experience.
Stories that are not strictly Westerns but feature Native American characters or themes also deal with the practice. For example, the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is a historical novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in February 1826. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known...
based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper
James Fenimore Cooper was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo...
shows many acts of scalping throughout the film, notably in the battle-scenes between the Native Americans and European troops. In the 1994 film Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall is a 1994 epic drama film based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim Harrison. It was directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn. The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction , and Best...
Tristan Ludlow (Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
) scalps many German soldiers in the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
resulting in his discharge from army service.
The horror genre uses scalping as a violent and sensationalistic act, the most notorious depiction being a sequence in the 1981 slasher film Maniac
Maniac (1980 film)
Maniac is a 1980 American slasher film , about a disturbed and traumatized serial killer who scalps his victims. It was directed by William Lustig and written by Joe Spinell and C. A. Rosenberg...
, featuring shockingly realistic makeup effects by Tom Savini
Tom Savini
Thomas Vincent "Tom" Savini is an American actor, stuntman, director, award-winning special effects and makeup artist. He is known for his work on the Living Dead films directed by George A. Romero, as well as Creepshow, The Burning, Friday the 13th, The Prowler, and Maniac. He directed the 1990...
. Later examples include the 2002 film Deathwatch where Pte. Thomas Quinn (Andy Serkis
Andy Serkis
Andrew Clement G. "Andy" Serkis is an English actor, director and author. He is popularly known for playing Gollum in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he earned several award nominations, including the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Two Towers...
) wears a vest made from German scalps and is seen scalping an executed prisoner in one scene; the 2009 World War II film Inglourious Basterds where American irregulars
Irregular military
Irregular military refers to any non-standard military. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used....
collect scalps of killed Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
servicemen, with orders from their commanding officer to collect 100 scalps each; the 2007 film Saw IV where a woman named Brenda is put into a scalping chair torture device; and the video game Gun where the player is able to scalp dying enemies after purchasing a special scalping knife.
One of the female victims in Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1975 film Salò
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom , commonly referred to as Salò, is a controversial 1975 Italian drama film written and directed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini with uncredited writing contributions by Pupi Avati. It is based on the book The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade...
is depicted being scalped during the film's courtyard torture scenes.
In Kill Bill Volume 1 the bride finishes her battle by scalping O-ren ishii with her samurai sword the camera reveals her part of her brain missing as she utters her last words
The difficulty and skill of scalping are themes of the Neil LaBute
Neil LaBute
Neil N. LaBute is an American film director, screenwriter and playwright.-Early life:LaBute was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Marian, a hospital receptionist, and Richard LaBute, a long-haul truck driver. LaBute is of French Canadian, English and Irish ancestry, and was raised in Spokane,...
-directed Nurse Betty
Nurse Betty
Nurse Betty is a 2000 American comedy film directed by Neil LaBute starring Renée Zellweger as a sweet Kansas waitress who undergoes a nervous breakdown after witnessing her husband's murder, and starts obsessively pursuing her favorite soap actor....
.
In the Australian soap opera Prisoner it's discovered that inmate Chrissie Latham killed an officer's husband so she gets scalped with a pair of scissors by another inmate, Bea Smith.
In an episode of Boardwalk Empire, James Darmody has his ally Richard Harrow, the tragically disfigured World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
veteran, scalp an enemy (apparently a veteran of the Great Sioux War of 1876) who had earlier hit Mr. Darmody with his cane.