In article ,
rosie readandpost wrote:

cute little story, BUT why would the indians desecrate the graves?
of all the peoples, that have settled in america, they seem the most unlikely!


Well, the particular tribes that lived in the area at the time probably
would not have. You have to remember, though, that there is not one
"Indian" (or "Native American" if you prefer) culture. There were and
are many. I doubt that the Mormons travelling through were crack
ethnographers.

People have this wierd "noble savage" concept of "the" Indian, but
that's pretty much wrong. If you go through the many, many cultures in
pre-Columbian North and Meso America, you can find just about any kind
of practice you want to find. Indians are humans, just like everybody
else, no worse and no better, and humans develop rather consistent
patterns of social behavior -- both on the large and small scale. Some
of them are good, and some of them are disgusting.

In particular, mutilation of the dead was a common practice among
both Indians and Europeans.

As noted in
http://earlyamerica.com/review/1998/scalping.html

An account of attack near Lake George, in 1759, illustrates
Pouchot's observations. On July 2nd, "16 of the Jersey Blues were
sent without the camp to gather a little brush for the General's
Baker, but were not an hour gone before they were surprized in sight
of the camp by a party of the enemy, consisting of about 240, who
killed and scalped six, wounded two, took four prisoners, and only
four of the whole party escaped. They shewed themselves plainly to
the whole Army after they got the scalps, gave a hollow, and then
made off to their Battoes, which were not more than two miles from
the Head of the Lake. A large party was ordered out after them, but
in vain. They butchered our people in a most shocking manner, by
cutting pieces of flesh out of their necks, thighs and legs."



Depending on who you ask, scalping was either practiced in North
America, brought to North America by white settlers, or
(almost certainly) both. Even if one believes that it originated
entirely in North America, it was eagerly adopted by the French
and English. The Governor of Pennsylvania, for instance, paid
135 pounds for each male Indian scalp presented to the colony.

*Today,* even though it is considered a war crime, people still
take tropies in war -- ears, tongues, scrotums, etc.

It's just what *people* do.

billo