The expectation at the time was that the natives would torture any captives since the bodies of previous captives were usually found naked and mutilated, hence the troopers would be eager to go as ‘painlessly’ as possible. But they didn’t notice that the bodies of those killed before capture were also stripped and mutilated – a tradition reserved for the dead: native Americans usually killed any captives immediately (to the point that there might even be a fight for the honour to do it; the sounds of intermittent gunfire heard by the surviving soldiers after they knew Custer and his men were defeated were the coup de grâce being dealt out prior to scalping) unless they were children (who were adopted) or young women (who were ‘adopted’ and eventually married into the tribe), stripped them and then mutilated the body so that it would not be happy in the ‘happy hunting ground’. The myth of torture has been perpetuated by most western’s – at least until they stopped being so one sided.

Apparently Custer’s ear drums were pierced so that he could hear better in the afterlife, because he hadn’t been listening to the natives when he’d been alive…