Under the Skin : University of Pennsylvania Press : 9781512823165 : 1512823163 : 01 Nov 2022 : Under the Skin investigates the role of cross-cultural body modification in seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century North America, revealing that the practices of tattooing and scalping were crucial to interactions between Natives and newcomers. These permanent and painful marks could act as signs of alliance or signs of conflict, producing a complex bodily archive of cross-cultural entanglement. Indigenous body modification practices were adopted and transformed by colonial powers, making tattooing and scalping key forms of cultural and political contestation in early America. Although these bodily practices were quite distinct?one a painful but generally voluntary sign of accomplishment and affiliation, the other a violent assault on life and identity?they were linked by growing colonial perceptions that both were crucial elements of ?Nativeness.? Tracing the transformation of concepts