Messed Up 2016-08-08

[FreeFlier]

George Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat, never allowed himself to be photographed without his hat. . . .

My late paternal grandfather was that way . . . he'd gone bald early, so there are very few photos of him without a hat.


My late maternal grandmother knew someone who, in the late 1920s, always wore a hat . . . even in church.

And nobody, not even the pastor, said a word about it.

One day she saw him lose the hat (an unexpected gust of wind, IIRC) . . . massive scars. He'd come west as a young man, and had survived being scalped.

--FreeFlier

[AnotherFairportfan]

George Herriman, creator of Krazy Kat, never allowed himself to be photographed without his hat.

(Incidentally, if you're familiar with New Orleans patois, Yat or Nint' Wahd, try reading Krazy Kat in that accent... Herriman was born in NOLa.)

Some speculate that he insisted on the hat because his hair was somewhat, shall we say, nappy, and the times being what they were . . . .

Matter of fact, that's exactly it.

Herriman's family were Creole, but were able to "pass' (by the standards of the day and in terms of the day) in Los Angeles.

[lake_wrangler]

My late maternal grandmother knew someone who, in the late 1920s, always wore a hat . . . even in church.

And nobody, not even the pastor, said a word about it.

One day she saw him lose the hat (an unexpected gust of wind, IIRC) . . . massive scars. He'd come west as a young man, and had survived being scalped.

--FreeFlier

Louis Lamour wrote about the act of scalping in lengthy detail, in one of his books. The actual scalping does not kill the victim, but will forever cause sagging of the rest of the skin around the top of the head, below the scalping. If someone didn't survive a scalping, it's because the Indian didn't want the person to survive...

If you ever get the chance to read this book, it is well worth it. I have read it several times, already...

[FreeFlier]

My late maternal grandmother knew someone who, in the late 1920s, always wore a hat . . . even in church.

And nobody, not even the pastor, said a word about it.

One day she saw him lose the hat (an unexpected gust of wind, IIRC) . . . massive scars. He'd come west as a young man, and had survived being scalped.

Louis Lamour wrote about the act of scalping in lengthy detail, in one of his books. The actual scalping does not kill the victim, but will forever cause sagging of the rest of the skin around the top of the head, below the scalping. If someone didn't survive a scalping, it's because the Indian didn't want the person to survive...

If you ever get the chance to read this book, it is well worth it. I have read it several times, already...

This was once a custom of my people.

I have several copies.

And my understanding is that in many cases, the victim died of shock and/or infection. Or of the injuries inflicted while subduing the individual before the scalping.

--FreeFlier

[TazManiac]

Well, just to toss my little one cent in here- I seem to recollect a film, in the '70s if I'm not mistaken, that prominently displayed a minor or secondary character- who'd survived a scalping.

Might have been 'Little Big Man', don't think it was 'the Outlaw Jose Wales' thought... muhbee.

Dreams are like Clouds across a Sky Blue Mind...

[AnotherFairportfan]

Heh. Flashman was scalped.

At Little Big Horn.

By his own son.