Why did the Indians use scalps for?

Answer 1

Anthropologist categorize scalping with the practice of headhunting, and explain it as a more economical form of the practice. Scalping of live and dead enemies has been a practice since at least the 4th century BCE. The Greek historian Herodotus reported the practice among the Scyths, the people who populated the area of Eurasia from the eastern shore of the Black Sea to the Indus Valley and the Himalayas and modern day southern Russia, as early as 440 BC.

Scalping was not originally practiced by any Native American tribe. It was a learned or acquired practice, brought to the New World by Europeans. Although archaeological evidence from the Crow Creek site in South Dakota give potential evidence that the Lakota may have practiced scalping of the dead as early as the 14th century, very recent investigation has shown that Native American people may have have had contact with Europeans before the date of the sight, and may have been introduced to the practice by Europeans or Asians around this time or before.
During very early colonial times, as early as 1689, when European nations were competing for space in the New World, many of them employed Natives as scouts and warriors. As their employers, the Europeans paid the Natives for each European from another nation they killed. To prove a kill, Natives were required to take the scalp, a sure indication, being that Europeans and Native Americans have very different hair. This practice began as early as the first European colonization, as early as , and both the French and English paid bounties for Native American scalps taken.

The short answer is that Native Americans took scalps for retaliation and bounties paid. They were taught to do it.