A Meanes to Knitt Them Togeather': The Exchange of Body Parts in the Pequot War
Response to “A Meanes to Knitt Them Togeather”: The Exchange of Body Parts in the Pequot War
A Meanes to Knitt Them Together was written by Andrew Lipman and published in 2008. The paper focuses on both the meaning of, what seems to us, the gory practices that both the Native American Indians and the British historically tended to use, and how those practices created a bond between the two peoples both in war and in a type of kinship.
When one looks back to English history, the removal of various body parts from criminals of all sorts is quite common as a punishment. A beheading, however, was generally reserved for usurpers of power or those who had committed the act of treason against their ruler. The reasoning behind this unique punishment was the common association of one’s head with the ruling power of the king, and if one threw off their king, the head must follow as well. However, beheadings were not only limited to fellow Englishmen, but could be also used on those who were considered to be savages. Algonquians, a group of Native Americans that had a great presence in the area of the thirteen British colonies, also placed great importance on dismemberment. Traditionally, warriors that were captured during battle by opposing sides were ritually dismembered, which gave the dying warrior a chance to reclaim his honor by accepting the pain stoically and the triumphant tribe in turn gained the spiritual strength of the opposing warrior. Once in possession of severed heads, scalps, hands, and feet, the Algonquians tended to use them as a way of creating alliances and solidifying bonds between each other.
During the period of the Pequot War, the two cultures tended to confuse the importance of various body parts to each other’s culture. The Native American Indians saw their deliverance of heads and scalps from the Pequots to the English colonists as a way to ensure their safety and create a pact of mutual defense and obligation between the two peoples. The
A Meanes to Knitt Them Together was written by Andrew Lipman and published in 2008. The paper focuses on both the meaning of, what seems to us, the gory practices that both the Native American Indians and the British historically tended to use, and how those practices created a bond between the two peoples both in war and in a type of kinship.
When one looks back to English history, the removal of various body parts from criminals of all sorts is quite common as a punishment. A beheading, however, was generally reserved for usurpers of power or those who had committed the act of treason against their ruler. The reasoning behind this unique punishment was the common association of one’s head with the ruling power of the king, and if one threw off their king, the head must follow as well. However, beheadings were not only limited to fellow Englishmen, but could be also used on those who were considered to be savages. Algonquians, a group of Native Americans that had a great presence in the area of the thirteen British colonies, also placed great importance on dismemberment. Traditionally, warriors that were captured during battle by opposing sides were ritually dismembered, which gave the dying warrior a chance to reclaim his honor by accepting the pain stoically and the triumphant tribe in turn gained the spiritual strength of the opposing warrior. Once in possession of severed heads, scalps, hands, and feet, the Algonquians tended to use them as a way of creating alliances and solidifying bonds between each other.
During the period of the Pequot War, the two cultures tended to confuse the importance of various body parts to each other’s culture. The Native American Indians saw their deliverance of heads and scalps from the Pequots to the English colonists as a way to ensure their safety and create a pact of mutual defense and obligation between the two peoples. The