Alma 44:12-15 Zerahemnah Scalped
The Book of Mormon records that a Lamanite named Zerahemnah lived after having his scalp cut off by the sword of a Nephite warrior (Alma 44:12-15). It is unreasonable to believe that this could happen.
While most Americans think of scalping as a custom formerly practiced by Native Americans on dead enemies, the history of the practice is far more complex and lengthy. Scalping was known among early Europeans, and those who emigrated go the New World carried on the practice on their Native American enemies. In the ancient Near East, the Scythians were known to remove the scalps of enemies. They moved southward from Central Asia in the 7th century BC, when Lehi lived in Jerusalem.
Scalping did not necessarily result in death, and there are several examples of 19th-century Americans who survived the ordeal. Union Union Pacific Railroad employee was scalped on 6 August 1867 at Plum Creek, Nebraska, during a Cheyenne Indian raid. Not wanting to die, he feigned death as a warrior scalped him alive but dropped the scalp while escaping. William retrieved the scalp and carried it to Omaha in a bucket of water, hoping to reattach it, but ended up tanning it and carried it with him wherever he went, lecturing about his experience. He left it to his doctor, who gave it to the public library in Omaha, where it remains to this day. Robert McGee was scalped as a child in 1864 by Sioux chief Little Turtle but lived to tell the tale. A photo taken about 1890 shows him with most of his scalp removed.