Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 30 51
a war party that happened on an enemy village
that was larger than it had expected to find. In
the ensuing fight, all of the Pawnees were scalped
but not killed. They went off to live in the hills;
and years later a lone hunter came upon these
scalped men in a grove of trees, where they were
singing and dancing. He recognized them, and
shot over their heads so that they ran off to their
cave. He followed them, but was afraid to enter
the cave, and so he returned home only to tell the
people that the men whom they thought were
dead were in fact scalped men.
Another portrayal of the scalped man is that of
a thief, one who steals into the village at night
after everyone is asleep and takes whatever he
can. In many stories his home, when discovered,
is found to be full of provisions taken from the
village of his people. One Arikara story specifically
makes this point. When the people were
living in Like-A-Fishhook Village, someone repeatedly
stole hides that during the tanning process
were hung up outside at night. One evening
a man determined to catch the thief, so he had
his wife hang a hide up and then he lay in wait.
When the thief came to take it, the man chased
after him, but the thief eluded him. The man,
nevertheless, trailed him relentlessly, even though
while he was tracking him, the human tracks
frequently turned into those of a coyote, then
back to those of a human. Finally, the scalped
man killed a deer and left the carcass to entice
his pursuer to stop; however, it was not until the
scalped man crossed a river by jumping on pieces
of floating ice that he escaped. The man then
returned to the village and told the people that it
had been a scalped man who had stolen their
hides and that they must stop blaming one another.
The scalped man occasionally stole women,
too. In one story told by both the Pawnee and
Arikara (Dorsey, 1904a: 148, 1904b:78), he
wanted a wife. After he caught a young woman
who was outside the village, he started for his
cave with her. But when they came to a creek,
the girl persuaded him to submerge himself in the
water and soak the scabs on his head so that they
would peel off easily and he would not appear so
frightful. Then while he had his head under
water, she ran off, escaping home, while the
pathetic scalped man cried in frustration about
his unfortunate condition.
Within this set of stories there is, finally, one
that depicts the scalped man as a joker who
ridicules the sacred. A group of Arikara men who
were on an eagle trapping expedition built a
lodge and fitted it out with a supply of wood, a
fireplace, and an altar consisting of a buffalo skull
and a Mother Corn. After having prepared the
inside, they put some ribs over the fire to roast
while they were out in their traps. Later, they
returned to the lodge only to find their belongings,
the wood, and the ribs scattered around.
The buffalo skull had been smeared with soot, so
that it was now black; and a face had been drawn
on the Mother Corn. Angered by this sacrilege,
the men determined to catch the culprit. They
rearranged the lodge, and the next day they hid
themselves in holes nearby. Later a man came
stealing to the lodge. After he was inside, the men
came to the door. The intruder was talking to the
skull and Mother Corn in Arikara, telling the
objects that he had decorated them yesterday and
here the men had subsequently spoiled them.
When the men silently entered, they found a
scalped man kneeling down in the center of the
lodge, his back to them as he talked to Grandfather
Skull. One of the men now called out to him,
"Hey, you going around here, /wouldn't be doing
those things if / had a village" (i.e., were a
member of society). Startled, the scalped man
jumped up; and when he saw all the men, he
collapsed from shock. The men, assuming he had
died of fright, left him lying there, picked up their
belongings, and returned home. They told people
what had happened: how this young man, who
had supposedly died years ago, was alive as a
scalped man; how he had ridiculed them; and
how he had died of fright when they caught him.
Later, the relatives of the young man went to find
his body; but when they reached the lodge, he
was no longer there. He had apparently revived
and departed, never to be seen again.