Thanks for the summation! It's also interesting to note (at least in my little specialty area) that not all Indian tribes practiced mutilation. The Apache, for instance, scalped very rarely. The Sioux were nicknamed "head cutters" by some of their neighbors for their old practice of decapitation. In all cases the practices had serious cultural implications, as you mentioned, Kat. I have a nagging recollection that some segments of the Norse peoples believed that a mutilated body would not cross over into the afterlife and would in fact haunt the region looking for its lost bits...

Since most monotheistic cultures were outgrowths of these older traditions and practices, it makes sense that they would cling to or transmute some aspects of them.