"The wild Andamanese, who live only on the fruits of their forests and on fish, so far revere their progenitors that they adorn their women and children with necklaces and such like, formed out of the finger and toe-nails of their ancestors."136
Bancroft says137 that the Californians did not generally scalp, but they did cut off and keep the arms and legs of a slain enemy or, rather, the hands and feet and head. They also had the habit of plucking out and preserving the eyes.
Kohl assures us that he has been informed that the Ojibwa will frequently cut fingers, arms, and limbs from their enemies and preserve these ghastly relics for use in their dances. Sometimes the warriors will become so excited that they will break off and swallow a finger.138
Tanner says of the Ojibwa: "Sometimes they use sacks of human skin to contain their medicines, and they fancy that something is thus added to their efficacy."139
Of the savages of Virginia we read: "Mais d'autres portent pour plus glorieuse parure une main seiche de quelqu'un de leurs ennemis."140
Of the Algonkin we read: "Il y en a qui ont une partie du bras et la main de quelque Hiroquois qu'ils ont tué; cela est si bien vuidée que les ongles restent toutes entieres."141
The Mohawk "place their foe against a tree or stake and first tear all the nails from his fingers and run them on a string, which they wear the same as we do gold chains. It is considered to the honor of any chief who has vanquished or overcome his enemies if he bite off or cut off some of their members, as whole fingers."142
The Cenis (Asinai) of Texas, were seen by La Salle's expedition in 1687-1690, torturing a captive squaw. "They then tore out her hair, and cut off her fingers."143
In volume 2 of Kingsborough's Mexican Antiquities, in the plates of the Vatican manuscript, is to be seen a representation of an Aztec priest or other dignitary holding out in his hands two human arms. In plate 76 of the same is a priest offering up a human sacrifice, the virile member of the victim cut off.
Teoyamaqui, the wife of Huitzlipochtli, the Aztec god of war, was depicted with a necklace of human hands.144 Squier also says that Darga or Kali, the Hindu goddess, who corresponds very closely to her, was represented with "a necklace of skulls" and "a girdle of dissevered human hands."
The Hindu goddess Kali was decorated with a necklace of human skulls.145 In the Propaganda collection, given in Kingsborough,146 are to be seen human arms and legs.
"On the death of any of the great officers of state, the finger bones and hair are also preserved; or if they have died shaven, as sometimes occurs, a bit of their mbŭgŭ dress will be preserved in place of the hair."147 "Their families guard their tombs."148
The principal war fetiches of Uganda "consist of dead lizards, bits of wood, hide, nails of dead people, claws of animals, and beaks of birds." Stanley saw them displayed before King Mtesa.149
"Some of the women in Gippsland wear round the neck human hands, which, Mr. Hull says, were beautifully prepared. He moreover informs me that they sometimes wear the parts of which the 'Lingam' and 'Priapus' were the emblems."150 "The Gippsland people keep the relics of the departed. They will cut off the hands to keep as a remembrance, and these they will attach to the string that is tied round the neck."151
Smyth also relates that the women of some of the Australian tribes preserve "the hands of some defunct member of the tribe – that of some friend of the woman's, or perhaps one belonging to a former husband. This she keeps as the only remembrance of one she once loved; and, though years may have passed, even now, when she has nothing else to do, she will sit and moan over this relic of humanity. Sometimes a mother will carry about with her the remains of a beloved child, whose death she mourns."152 The Australians also use the skulls of their "nearest and dearest relatives" for drinking vessels; thus, a daughter would use her mother's skull, etc.153
"One of the most extraordinary of their laws is that a widow, for every husband she marries after the first, is obliged to cut off a joint of a finger, which she presents to her husband on the wedding day, beginning at one of the little fingers."154
In the Army and Navy Journal, New York, June 23, 1888, is mentioned a battle between the Crow of Montana and the Piegan, in which the former obtained some of the hands and feet of dead warriors of the first-named tribe and used them in their dances.
Catlin shows that the young Sioux warriors, after going through the ordeal of the sun dance, placed the little finger of the left hand on the skull of a sacred buffalo and had it chopped off.155
"The sacrifices [of American Indians] at the fasts at puberty sometimes consist of finger joints."156
In Dodge's Wild Indians is represented (Pl. vi, 13) a Cheyenne necklace of the bones of the first joint of the human fingers, stripped of skin and flesh. I have never seen or heard of anything of the kind, although I have served with the Cheyenne a great deal and have spoken about their customs. My necklace is of human fingers mummified, not of bones.
Fanny Kelly says of a Sioux chief: "He showed me a puzzle or game he had made from the finger bones of some of the victims that had fallen beneath his own tomahawk. The bones had been freed from the flesh by boiling, and, being placed upon a string, were used for playing some kind of Indian game."157
Strabo recounts in his third book that the Lusitanians sacrificed prisoners and cut off their right hands to consecrate them to their gods.
Dulaure says that the Germans attached the heads and the right hands of their human victims to sacred trees.158
Adoni-bezek cut off the thumbs and great toes of seventy kings of Syria.159
The necklace of human fingers is not a particle more horrible than the ornaments of human bones to be seen in the cemetery of the Capuchins in Rome at the present day. I have personally known of two or three cases where American Indians cut their enemies limb from limb. The idea upon which the practice is based seems to be the analogue of the old English custom of sentencing a criminal to be "hanged, drawn, and quartered."
Brand gives a detailed description of the "hand of glory," the possession of which was believed by the peasantry of Great Britain and France to enable a man to enter a house invisible to the occupants. It was made of the hand of an executed (hanged) murderer, carefully desiccated and prepared with a great amount of superstitious mummery. With this holding a candle of "the fat of a hanged man" burglars felt perfectly secure while engaged in their predatory work.