There are many conflicting opinions about that, John. Some sources say the whites introduced the practice first in various places, but I don't think anyone has definitive proof of that. While the whites made scalping into a lucrative business (paying a cash bounty for scalps of men $$$, women $$, and even children $) the Indians did it for prestige purposes. Doing it for money certainly strikes me as more despicable on the whole. There were cases aplenty of white scalpers killing other whites, specially Mexicans, as long as they could get some black hair that just looked like it came from an Indian and get paid for it!

Anyway, if the whites originated the practice it caught on mighty fast, and it must have spread rapidly, because many Indians out west were known to do it even before they encountered any whites. (they were killing other Indians in tribal warfare and scalping them)

What the Indians were very well known for was hideously torturing and abusing their captives...or on some other occasions adopting them into the family and treating them well. On still other occasions...turning them into slaves.

Seems like there was all manner of behaviour, good and bad. Which aspect people focus most on is usually indicative of what cross they most prefer to bear or which drum they best like to beat, if you know what I mean... ;-)

I am very pro-Indian by nature, but I'm not about to turn a blind eye to the Indian atrocities committed in war either, and those were pretty common. Atrocities seem to have been the rule of the day on either side, sad to say.