Mathis News (Mathis, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 11, 2015 Page: 4 of 10
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Mathis News
Viewpoint
Thursday, June 11,2015
Page 4
Karankawa took part in scalping
Bend of Texas.
Herndon Williams is
affiliated with the Bay side
Historical Society and the
Refugio County Historical
Commission. He is the
author of the book, “Texas
Gulf Coast Stories,” pub-
lished in December 2010
by The History Press.
His second book, aEight
Centuries on the Texas
Frontier,” was published
in May 2013. Email at
cherndon8695@sbcglobal.
net.
taken from his account of marrow,
ferocious people living in
an area called Caniba.
The Karankawa were
identified by the earliest
Texas settlers as being
cannibals and there is at
least one first-hand his-
torical account of it.
Some of the accounts
of cannibalism made it
There is also archeo- into the historical record,
logical evidence that can- such as the case of the
nibalism was resorted English settlers at colo-
to by the Neanderthals, nial Jamestown in 1609-
American Indians and 1610.
Coastal Bend
Chronicles
t
The Karankawa and
many other Indian tribes
in America were known
By C. Herndon Williams, Ph.D.
early settlers in cases of
severe famine.
All of these practices
of human desecration are
This evidence consists evidence of a barbaric
of human bones with past we would hope to
stone-tool cut marks and have left behind us, but
human femurs that were the Karankawa are sin-
cracked open to access the gled out in the Coastal
to scalp their dead or
incapacitated enemies,
although the scalping written by the Greek his- was the preferred practice
itself was not always torian Herodotus in 440 and the head was often
fatap BC about the practice cured or mummified to be
practiced by the Sythians. used in rituals.
These practices ter-
rified and repulsed the
early European settlers n°ted in wars in Europe trophy was to scalp in
between the Visigoths, which the knee was
Franks and Anglo Saxons placed between the shoul-
in the AD 800s.
The quicker way to a
Later, scalping was
in America and perhaps
seemed an aberration of
human nature or at least
barbaric behavior.
Scalping has a very !
long history. The first
account of scalping was
Vi
i
der blades of the inca-
A *'f.
pacitated person on the
ground, a long arc was cut
in the front of the scalp
and the hair was pulled
straight back.
m\
Scalping was practiced
by the Native Americans
America
before the arrival of the
Europeans.
A recent osteological
study for evidence of pre-
historic scalping in Texas
examined 800 skulls from
all regions of Texas.
Only three of the skulls
showed evidence of scalp-
ing and all were from the
pre-European period of
AD 700 to 1500.
Therefore
existed, but not widely
practiced in prehistoric
Texas.
i
North
m
r
OH, SURE-
HOY4
THE US Vttwte
TO PAY ATTENTION
10 SO CCER-!
While the scalp was
usually processed and
used in displays or ritu-
als, other body parts such
as ears and finger bones
were also taken.
Mathis
News
\\
m
fij.
(USPS 434-240)
(ISSN 0746-5459)
Published Every Thursday
Office:
620 E. San Patricio
Mathis, TX 78368
I
Ritual cannibalism was
practiced in the same way
as trophy taking; it was a
way of expressing power
over a defeated enemy.
scalping
1 (361) 547-3274
Ritual cannibalism is
distinguished from can-
nibalism for sustenance
Mail correspondence to:
620 E. San Patricio
Mathis, Texas 78368
because it is always prac-
Scalping was also pres- ticed on a person outside
ent in other areas of
r
Jeff & Chip Latcham,
Co-Publishers
your group.
North America when the
early explorers arrived.
When Cabeza de Vaca
and the shipwrecked
However, the practice Spaniards resorted to
may have been encour- cannibalism on their
aged by the European dead comrades in order
colonists in the early colo- to survive their first win-
nial wars.
Paul Gonzales,
Editor
Subscription Rates
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ter, the Karankawa were
For example, in the repulsed.
French and Indian War
$ 35.00
$ 45.00
$ 50.00
San Patricio County
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Yet the Karankawas
of the 1750s, the French- had no problem with eat-
Canadians paid a bounty ing their enemies in a vic-
tor scalps whether from tory ceremony,
white or red enemies.
"S'
i? fin
But they were not
In 1744, the govern- unique in this. The his-
ment of Massachusetts torian T. R. Fehrenbach
M
jg
Colony paid for the scalps in Lone Star says”... all
of Indian men, women Texas tribes, ...except the
Comanche, practiced at
least some form of ritual
cannibalism.”
Tf
POSTMASTER:
and children.
1]
Send address changes to The
Mathis News, Drawer B, Sinton,
TX 78387
So the scalpers includ-
ed both Indians and
American frontiersmen.
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Then there was the
other kind of non-ritual
cannibalism.
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Similarly, trophy tak-
ing in war from a defeated
enemy has a long history Columbus reported in
and while it was not uni- 1492 on the cannibalism
^MEMBER
| 2014
* *
versal, it was very wide- he encountered in the
spread.
TEXAS PRESS
ASSOCIATION
Caribbean Islands.
IF lf?Ac?i S^P/^RS HAD &SAN AT IMS
The word cannibal is
Early on, decapitation
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Gonzales, Paul. Mathis News (Mathis, Tex.), Vol. 89, No. 24, Ed. 1 Thursday, June 11, 2015, newspaper, June 11, 2015; Mathis, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1170655/m1/4/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Mathis Public Library.