> [!quote] [Hostile Diffusion](https://traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/hostile-diffusion) by [[William Buckner]] on 2022-05-14 via [[Traditions of Conflict]] > > Scalping was extant, but not especially common, in the Arctic and Subarctic and along the Pacific Northwest Coast, however it was _universal_ among the equestrian foragers further south and east across the Great Plains and the Eastern Woodlands. > > While evidence for trophy-taking in the Americas and [elsewhere around the world](https://traditionsofconflict.substack.com/p/the-northman-the-decline-of-western?s=w) goes back thousands of years, the introduction of horses into parts of North America seemed to facilitate the spread and elaboration of scalping traditions across large parts of the continent. > > When reading descriptions of scalping, negative reciprocity between hostile communities seemed to play a strong role in motivating this behavior, even by communities apparently without much history of, or interest in, the practice. > > Traditions such as this make sense in a context of frequent raiding between relatively far flung groups, with scalping representing a common conflict language to intimidate and humiliate rivals. - related to [[the introduction of horses in North America led to new raid-based socio-economic dynamics]].