[11]Wild currants strung like beads.
[11]Wild currants strung like beads.
The child had now grown so large that it could talk with him, and one day it said, “Father, you go away, and you be gone for four days; I will be all right here. When you come back you will find me safe.”
The man went. He started to go way down south, to be gone for four days. After he had been gone two days and two nights, he saw a signal smoke and went toward it. As he raised up his head and peeped over a hill before crossing it, he saw, far off, a lot of people and horses coming toward the river which lay between him and them. He lay on the hill a long time, watching to see where they would camp. When they had made camp, he went into a ravine, and crept down close to the camp, until he could see that it was just one lodge, and that about it were a whole herd of horses. He waited until evening, and then went over to the lodge. It was after dark when he went. The lodge was all surrounded by horses; everywhere nothing but horses, there were so many. He crept close to the lodge, and looked in through an opening by the door, and saw lying down opposite the door a great big man, and on either side a woman; only three persons in all. As he looked at these persons, he thought he recognized one of the women. He kept looking at her, and at last he remembered who she was, and that she had been captured long ago from the Pawnees. Her people were still living. The man was a Comanche.
While the Pawnee was watching, the man inside the lodge asked for something, and the captive woman stood up to go out of the lodge, and the Pawnee stepped to one side, out of sight. The woman came out into the darkness, and went out among the horses. The Pawnee stepped up behind her very softly, and put his hand on her shoulder, and said to her in Pawnee, “Friend, do you belong to my tribe?” The woman started to scream, but he put his hand on her mouth, and said to her, “Be quiet. Keep still. Do not call out.” She answered him, “Yes, I belong to your tribe.” Then she said in a very low voice that shook, for she was afraid, “Do you belong to my tribe?” The man said, “Yes.” Then he asked her, “Who is that other woman that I see in the lodge?” She answered him, “She also belongs to our tribe, and is a prisoner.” Then the man said, “You just wait and keep still. I am going to kill that man.” The woman said, “That is good. That is good. This man is the biggest man of all the Comanches. He has come first to this place, and all the rest of the Comanches are coming here to meet him. I am glad that my people are living, and that I am going back to see them once more. Do not fail to killhim. I will tell the other woman to be ready, that our friend is here, and we will wait and watch.”
When the woman went into the lodge, she whispered to the other woman, and said, “Be ready. A friend who belongs to our tribe is here. Take your hatchet, and be prepared to help to kill our husband.”
The two women waited, and the Pawnee made ready to shoot the Comanche with his bow and arrow. The woman had said to him, “Push aside the door a little and be ready.” He made a little bit of an opening by the door, just big enough to let an arrow pass through, and when the time came he let it go.U´-ra-rīsh!the arrow flew straight, and pierced the Comanche through the heart. So he died, and the Pawnee countedcoupon him and took his scalp.
The women felt so glad to meet a friend that they put their arms around the man and patted him. They were going back home to see their relations. They asked him, “How many of you are here?” He answered, “I am alone.” They were surprised.
They took down the lodge, and packed everything on the horses, and drove off the herd, leaving the dead body of the enemy in the camp. All night they traveled, and all the next day; and as they weregoing, he told them how it came about that he was alone. They told him that there were about three hundred head of horses in the herd that they had with them. When they had come pretty close to where he had left the child, he told them about the boy being there all alone; and the women just ran their horses to get to the boy; whichever got there first, he should be hers. When they came to the boy, they took him in their arms and petted him, and took him as their own.
Now the father was no longer sad. He had recovered two captured women, had killed his enemy, and had taken a lot of horses.
They went on, and traveled far, and at length, one night, they came to the Pawnee tribe, and camped with them. The horses just surrounded the lodge, you could just see the top of it over their backs. The next morning all the people wondered who these strangers could be. They found out that the man and child, who were lost, had returned, and with them two women, captured long ago by the Comanches. So there was great joy in the tribe. Then the man gave his relations many horses. In those days the Pawnees had not many horses, and it seems that this man brought good luck in horses tothe tribe. Ever since that time they have had many horses. The mother of the child came to see it, she was so glad it was alive, but she was whipped out of the lodge.
The child grew to be a man, and was wealthy. After he had grown up, he told his father that ever since he could remember anything, a buck deer had talked to him, and taken care of him; that it had saved them, and brought them good fortune. In order that theO´re-ka-rahrmight be remembered, he established a dance, called the deer dance, which has been kept up to this day.
Many wonderful things happened to this same young man. Once he went on a war party against the Cheyennes, and stole some horses from them. The Cheyennes followed and overtook them, and they had a great fight. The first man killed was this young man. He was very brave, and the Cheyennes cut him up into small pieces, but that night it lightened and thundered and rained, and soon after the storm was over, the young man came walking into camp alive. He was all scarred over, where he had been cut up, but he had come to life because the deer had looked after him. He lived long to show the scars of the battles he had been through.
IN a place where we used to have a village, a young woman died just before the tribe started on the hunt. When she died they dressed her up in her finest clothes, and buried her, and soon after this the tribe started on the hunt.
A party of young men had gone off to visit another tribe, and they did not get back until after this girl had died and the tribe had left the village. Most of this party did not go back to the village, but met the tribe and went with them on the hunt. Among the young men who had been away was one who had loved this girl who had died. He went back alone to the village. It was empty and silent, but before he reached it, he could see, far off, some one sitting on top of a lodge. When he came near, he saw that it was the girl he loved. He did notknow that she had died, and he wondered to see her there alone, for the time was coming when he would be her husband and she his wife. When she saw him coming, she came down from the top of the lodge and went inside. When he came close to her, he spoke and said, “Why are you here alone in the village?” She answered him, “They have gone off on the hunt. I was sulky with my relations, and they went off and left me behind.” The man wanted her now to be his wife, but the girl said to him, “No, not yet, but later we will be married.” She said to him, “You must not be afraid. To-night there will be dances here; the ghosts will dance.” This is an old custom of the Pawnees. When they danced they used to go from one lodge to another, singing, dancing and hallooing. So now, when the tribe had gone and the village was deserted, the ghosts did this. He could hear them coming along the empty streets, and going from one lodge to another. They came into the lodge where he was, and danced about, and whooped and sang, and sometimes they almost touched him, and he came pretty near being scared.
The next day, the young man persuaded the girl to go on with him, and follow the tribe, to join it on the hunt. They started to travel together, and shepromised him that she would surely be his wife, but not until the time came. They overtook the tribe; but before they got to the camp, the girl stopped. She said, “Now we have arrived, but you must go first to the village, and prepare a place for me. Where I sleep, let it be behind a curtain. For four days and four nights I must remain behind this curtain. Do not speak of me. Do not mention my name to any one.”
The young man left her there and went into the camp. When he got to his lodge, he told a woman, one of his relations, to go out to a certain place and bring in a woman, who was waiting there for him. His relative asked him, “Who is the woman?” And to avoid speaking her name, he told who were her father and mother. His relation, in surprise, said, “It cannot be that girl, for she died some days before we started on the hunt.”
When the woman went to look for the girl she could not find her. The girl had disappeared. The young man had disobeyed her, and had told who she was. She had told him that she must stay behind a curtain for four days, and that no one must know who she was. Instead of doing what she had said, he told who she was, and the girl disappearedbecause she was a ghost. If he had obeyed the girl, she would have lived a second time upon earth. That same night this young man died in sleep.
Then the people were convinced that there must be a life after this one.
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INTERIOR OF DIRT LODGE.
MANY years ago the Pawnees started on their winter hunt. The buffalo were scarce, and the people could get hardly any meat. It was very cold, and the snow lay deep on the ground. The tribe traveled southward, and crossed the Republican, but still found no buffalo. They had eaten all the dried meat, and all the corn that they had brought with them, and now they were starving. The sufferings of the people were great, and the little ones began to die of hunger. Now they began to eat their robes, andparfleches, and moccasins.
There was in the tribe a boy about sixteen years old, who was all alone, and was very poor. He had no relations who could take care of him, and he lived with a woman whose husband had been killed by the Sioux. She had two children, a boy and a girl; andshe had a good heart, and was sorry for the poor boy. In this time of famine, these people had scarcely anything to eat, and whenever the boy got hold of any food, he gave it to the woman, who divided it among them all.
The tribe kept traveling southward looking for buffalo, but they had to go very slowly, because they were all so weak. Still they found no buffalo, and each day the young men that were sent out to look for them climbed the highest hills, and came back at night, and reported that they could only see the white prairie covered with snow. All this time little ones were dying of hunger, and the men and women were growing weaker every day.
The poor boy suffered with the rest, and at last he became so weak that he hardly could keep up with the camp, even though it moved very slowly. One morning he was hardly able to help the old woman pack the lodge, and after it had been packed, he went back to the fire, and sat down beside it, and watched the camp move slowly off across the valley, and up over the bluffs. He thought to himself, “Why should I go on? I can’t keep up for more than a day or two longer anyhow. I may as well stay here and die.” So he gathered together theends of the sticks that lay by the fire, and put them on the coals, and spread his hands over the blaze, and rubbed them together, and got warm, and then lay down by the fire, and pretty soon he went to sleep.
When he came to himself, it was about the middle of the day, and as he looked toward the sky he saw two spots there between him and the sun, and he wondered what they were. As he looked at them they became larger and larger, and at last he could see that they were birds; and by and by, as they came still nearer, he saw that they were two swans. The swans kept coming lower and lower, and at last they alighted on the ground right by the fire, and walked up to where the boy lay. He was so weak he could not get up, and they came to him, one on each side, and stooped down, and pushed their shoulders under him, and raised him up and put him on their backs, and then spread their broad wings, and flew away upward. Then the boy went to sleep again.
When he awoke he was lying on the ground before a very big lodge. It was large and high, and on it were painted pictures of many strange animals, in beautiful colors. The boy had never seensuch a fine lodge. The air was warm here, and he felt stronger than before. He tried to raise himself up, and after trying once or twice he got on his feet, and walked to the door of the lodge, and went in. Opposite the door satA-ti´-us. He was very large and very handsome, and his face was kind and gentle. He was dressed in beautiful clothes, and wore a white buffalo robe. Behind him, from the lodge poles, hung many strange weapons. Around the lodge on each side sat many chiefs, and doctors, and warriors. They all wore fine clothes of white buckskin, embroidered with beautifully colored quills. Their robes were all of beaver skin, very beautiful.
When the boy entered the lodge,A-ti´-ussaid to him, “Looah, pi-rau´, we-tŭs sūks-pit—Welcome, my son, and sit down.” And he said to one of the warriors, “Give him something to eat.” The warrior took down a beautifully painted sack ofparfleche, and took his knife from its sheath, and cut off a piece of dried meat about as big as one’s two fingers, and a piece of fat about the same size, and gave them to the boy. The boy, who was so hungry, thought that this was not very much to give to one who was starving, but took it, and began to eat. He put thefat on the lean, and cut the pieces off, and ate for a long time. But after he had eaten for a long time, the pieces of meat remained the same size; and he ate all that he wanted, and then put the pieces down, still the same size.
After the boy had finished eating,A-ti´-usspoke to him. He told him that he had seen the sufferings of his people, and had been sorry for them; and then he told the boy what to do. So he kept the boy there for a little while longer, and gave him some fine new clothing and weapons, and then he told one of the warriors to send the boy back; and the warrior led him out of the lodge to where the swans were standing near the entrance, and the boy got on to their backs. Then the warrior put his hand on his face, and pressed his eyelids together, and the boy went to sleep. And by and by the boy awoke, and found himself alone by the fire. The fire had gone out, but the ground was still covered with snow, and it was very cold.
Now the boy felt strong, and he stood up, and started, running along the trail which the camp had taken. That night after dark he overtook the camp, for they traveled very slowly, and he walked through the village till he came to the lodge where the womanwas, and went in. She was surprised to see him in his new clothes, and looking so well and strong, and told him to sit down. There was a little fire in the lodge, and the boy could see that the woman was cutting up something into small pieces with her knife.
The boy said to her, “What are you doing?”
She answered, “I am going to boil our last piece of robe. After we have eaten this there will be nothing left, and we can then only die.”
The boy said nothing, but watched her for a little while, and then stood up and went out of the lodge. The door had hardly fallen behind him, when the woman heard a buffalo coughing, and then the breaking of the crisp snow, as if a heavy weight was settling on it. In a moment the boy lifted the lodge door, and came in, and sat down by the fire, and said to the woman, “Go out and bring in some meat.” The woman looked at him, for she was astonished, but he said nothing, so she went out, and there in the snow by the side of the lodge was a fat buffalo cow. Then the woman’s heart was glad. She skinned the cow, and brought some of the meat into the lodge and cooked it, and they all ate and were satisfied. The woman was good, so she sent her sonto the lodges of all her relations, and all her friends, and told them all to come next morning to her lodge to a feast, “for,” she said, “I have plenty of meat.”
So the next morning all her relations and all her friends came, so many that they could not all get into the lodge, but some had to stand outside, and they ate with her, and she cooked the meat of the cow for them, and they ate until it was all gone, and they were satisfied. And after they had done eating, they lighted their pipes and prayed, saying, “A-ti´-us, we´-tŭs kit-tah-we—Father, you are the ruler.”
While they were smoking the poor boy called the woman’s son to him, and pointed to a high hill near the camp, and said, “Looah, sūks-kus-sis-pah ti-rah hah-tūr—Run hard to the top of that hill, and tell me what you see.” So the boy threw off his robe, and smoothed back his hair, and started, and ran as hard as he could over the snow to the top of the hill. When he got there he shaded his eyes with his hand, for the sun shone bright on the snow and blinded him, and he looked east, and west, and north, and south, but he could see nothing but the shining white snow on the prairie. After he had looked all ways, he ran back as hard as he could tothe village. When he came to the lodge, he went to the poor boy, and said to him, “I don’t see anything but the snow.” The poor boy said, “You don’t look good. Go again.” So the boy started again, and ran as hard as he could to the hilltop, and when he got there, panting, he looked all ways, long and carefully, but still he could see nothing but the snow. So he turned and ran back to the village, and told the poor boy again that he saw nothing. The boy said, “You don’t look good.” Then he took his bow in his hand, and put his quiver on his back, and drew his robe up under his arm so that he could run well, and started, himself, and ran as hard as he could to the top of the hill, and when he got there he looked off to the south, and there, as far as he could see, the plain was black with buffalo struggling in the deep snow. And he turned to the village, and signaled them with his robe that buffalo were in sight. In a few minutes all the Pawnees had seized their bows and arrows, and were running toward him, and the women fixed thetravois, and took their knives, and followed. The boy waited on the hilltop until the warriors came up, and then they went down to the buffalo, running on the snow. The buffalo could not get away on account of thedeep snow, and the Pawnees made a great killing. Plenty of fat meat they got, enough to last them until the summer hunt, and plenty of warm winter robes. They did not have to move any further, but stayed right here, killing meat and drying it until they were all fat and strong again.
And the poor boy became a great doctor in the tribe, and got rich.
Before this the Pawnees had always had a woman chief, but when the woman who was chief died, she named the poor boy as her successor, and the people made him head chief of the tribe.
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FIRE-STICK.
ALONG time ago, the deer and the antelope met upon the prairie. At that time both of them had dew-claws, and both had galls. After they had talked for a little while, each one of them began to boast about how fast he could run. Each one, the deer and the antelope, claimed that he could run faster than any other animal, and at length they became very angry in their dispute, and determined that they would have a race.
They staked their galls on the race, and it was run on the prairie. The antelope ran the faster, and won, and took the deer’s gall. The deer felt very badly that he had lost it, and he seemed so miserable that the antelope felt sorry for him, and to cheer him up, he took off his dew-claws and gave them to him.
Since that time the deer has had no gall, and the antelope no dew-claws.
Note.—A story somewhat similar to this is current among the Blackfeet tribes of the northern country. In this tale the antelope won the deer’s gall, as in the Pawnee story. Then the deer said, “You have won, but that race was not a fair one, for it was over the prairie alone. We ought to run another race in the timber to decide which is really the faster.” They agreed to run this second race, and on it they bet their dew-claws. The deer ran the faster through the thick timber and over the logs, and beat the antelope, and took his dew-claws. Since then the antelope has had no dew-claws, and the deer no gall.
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BOW AND ARROWS.
ALONG time ago, while the Pawnees were on their winter hunt, a young boy,Kiwuk-u lah´-kahta(Yellow Fox), went out alone to hunt, to see if he could kill a deer. When he left the camp in the morning, it was warm and pleasant, but in the middle of the day a great storm of wind and snow came up, and the flying snow hid everything, and it grew very cold. By and by the ground was covered with snow, and the whole look of the prairie was changed, and the boy became lost, and did not know where he was, nor what way to go to get to the camp. All day he walked, but he saw nothing of the camp, nor of any trail and as it became colder and colder, he thought that he would surely freeze to death. He thought that he must die, and that there was no hope of his ever seeing his peopleagain. As he was wandering along, numbed and stiffened by the cold, and stumbling through the deep snow, he heard behind him a curious singing sound, and in time with the singing was the noise made by some heavy animal, running. The sounds came nearer, and at last, close by the boy, ran a great big buffalo bull. And as he ran near the boy, he sang a song, and as he sang, the sound of his hoofs on the ground kept time to the measure of the song. This is what he sang:
A-ti-us ti-wa-ko Ru-ru! Teh-wah-hwa´-ko,My Father says, Go on! He keeps saying,Ru-ru-hwa´-hwa´, Wi-ruh-rē.Keep going on. It will be well.
A-ti-us ti-wa-ko Ru-ru! Teh-wah-hwa´-ko,My Father says, Go on! He keeps saying,Ru-ru-hwa´-hwa´, Wi-ruh-rē.Keep going on. It will be well.
The boy’s heart became strong when he heard that the Father had sent the bull, and he followed him, and the bull led him straight to the camp.
Thenotes on the origin, customs and character of the Pawnees, which follow, have been gathered during twenty years’ acquaintance with this people. They are what they profess to be; not a history of the people, but a series of notes bearing on their mode of life in the old wild days, an attempt to give some clues to their habits of thought, and thus to indicate the character of the people. Such notes may be of use to some future historian who shall have the time and the inclination to trace out more fully the history of the Pawnees, and to tell, as it ought to be told, the story of a people who once were great. I could wish that it might be my privilege to undertake this congenial task, but the constantly increasing pressure of other duties forbids me to hope that I shall be able to doso. I feel satisfaction, however, in being able to record the observations here set down.
In the collection of this material I had for years the assistance and coöperation of the late Major Frank North, who always placed at my disposal his great store of Pawnee lore. Luther H. North, his brother, has given me a vast deal of assistance, and last spring accompanied me to the Pawnee reservation. Without his aid this book would never have been written. Mr. John B. Dunbar has been most kind in reading over the chapter on the Pawnees, and has aided me with many suggestions, besides giving me help on certain linguistic points.
Nothing is said in this volume about the Pawnee language—a subject which is sufficiently important to deserve a volume by itself.
To every intelligent student of North American aborigines it must be a matter of keen regret that nothing is known of the language of this people. That a distinct linguistic stock like the Pawnee should pass away unrecorded would be a serious misfortune, and the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution ought certainly to take some steps to preserve a record of the Pawnee language.
Major Frank North was undoubtedly more conversant with the spoken Pawnee tongue than any other white man has ever been. Since his death, there is no one who is so familiar with the language as Mr. John B. Dunbar, who has devoted much time to its study, and has made himself acquainted not only with its vocabulary, but also with its grammar. Born and reared among the Pawnees, familiar with them until early manhood, a frequent visitor to the tribe in later years, he is well fitted by interest and association to undertake the task of recording in permanent form the unwritten speech of this people. Add to this a long training as a student of language and history and a keen logical mind, and we have in Mr. Dunbar the man more than all others best fitted to undertake this difficult but most delightful task. The Director of the Bureau of Ethnology could not easily perform a greater service to aboriginal linguistics than to intrust to Mr. Dunbar the labor of preparing an extended work on the Pawnee language.
UNTIL within a few years the home of the Pawnees was in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas. This group of tribes may be called the main stock of the family; from them it took its name; they are its best and longest known members. In the earlier accounts of this people, the Pawnee Picts or Wichitas are often confounded with their more northern relatives.
The Pawnees proper consisted at one time of three bands or tribes, federated under a single head chief. These bands, in the order of their importance, were: The Chau-i, the Kit-ke-hahk´-i and the Pita-hau-erat. To these three was subsequently added—after the northern migration of the tribes, and their settlement in northern Kansas and Nebraska, but probablylong anterior to the advent of the whites, and by conquest—the large, powerful and intelligent allied tribe, known as the Skidi or Pawnee Loups. These four have always been known in the writings of the earlier explorers in the West as respectively the Grand, the Republican, the Tapage and the Wolf Pawnees, and they constituted the Pawnee Nation.
The three tribes first named have always been together, and their Pawnee names, according to Major North, denoted the relative situations of the three villages. Thus Kit-ke-hahk´-i means “on a hill;” Chau-i, “in the middle;” Pita-hau-erat, “down the stream,” or east; and in the olden times these were the relative positions of the different villages when the three bands were camping together. The Kit-ke-hahk´-i village was always the westernmost of the three, the Chau-i were next to them, and the Pita-hau-erat were furthest east. After the incorporation of the Skidi with the Pawnees, the village of that tribe was always placed furthest to the west, and it was spoken of as the Upper Village, while the other bands were termed the Lower Village Tribes.
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GOOD CHIEF—KIT-KE-HAHK´-I.
Of the three original bands, the Chau-i has always been first in importance, and the head chief has beenchosen from it. The Kit-ke-hahk´-i band in numbers, importance and intelligence appear to rank about with the Chau-i, while, on the other hand, the Pita-hau-erat are regarded as less intelligent, responsible and worthy than the other bands.
The Skidi are usually looked upon as more intelligent than the Pawnees, and also as fiercer in their nature, and as making better soldiers. The Skidi traditions, though such testimony, of course, is not of much value, speak rather contemptuously of the prowess of the other bands in war, and the superiority of the Skidi is grudgingly acknowledged by the others. This is contrary to the view held by Mr. J. B. Dunbar, who speaks of the Skidi as more intelligent than the other bands, but as not being so good as warriors.
Besides this main group of tribes, the members of the Pawnee family, as given by Mr. Dunbar, are the Arickaras, known also as the Arickarees, Ricarees or Rees, the Caddos, the Huecos or Wacos, the Keechies, the Tawaconies, and the Wichitas or Pawnee Picts. To these may be added with some confidence the Tonkaways and the Lipans. The Caddos, Huecos, Keechies and Tawaconies are regarded by the Pawnees as closely connected with theWichitas. They had but one name,Kiri-ku´ruks, for all these tribes, and knew no distinction between them. There is no doubt that the Arickaras were recently—perhaps within a century—either a band of the Skidi tribe, or at least allied to them as closely as the Chau-i have always been to the Kit-ke-hahk´-i and the Pita-hau-erat. The relationship of the Tonkaways and the Lipans has only recently been discovered, and has come to light through the removal of the Pawnees from their home in Nebraska to their present reservation in the Indian Territory.
In a note appended to his article on the Pawnees, published in theMagazine of American Historyfor November, 1880, Mr. Dunbar says, “A friend, who has had much experience with the Indians of the Southwest, informs me that he is inclined to believe that the Lipans of Mexico are of Pawnee stock. They have, in times past, exchanged frequent hospitalities with the Wichitas, or Pawnee Picts, and the two understand each other’s dialects readily. The name Lipans he explains asli’panis, that is,thePawnees.” While this suggestion is very interesting, so far as it goes, it scarcely furnishes sufficient ground on which to base a genetic connection of the Lipans with the Pawnee family. I have recentlysecured additional and more satisfactory evidence of such a connection.
It is generally believed by the Pawnees, especially by those who are most intelligent, and have had most intercourse with the southern tribes, that the Lipans are allied to them, and that this relationship is traceable through the Wichitas and the Tonkaways. The evidence consists of (1) statements by the Wichitas and Tonkaways, (2) an alleged similarity of language and personal names, and (3) a similarity in the songs of the tribes. A Pawnee Indian, who has lived for seven seasons with the Wichitas, gave me the following story which he had gathered from that people. They say that long ago they did not know the Tonkaways, but that when the tribes met they found that they could understand each other’s speech. Their languages were not the same, but they were not more unlike than were the tongues spoken by the Skidi and the three other Pawnee bands long ago; in other words, they were dialects of the same language. After that meeting, the Tonkaways and the Wichitas lived together for a time. But the Tonkaways had bad ways. They would eat human flesh. When they could find a Wichita boy out away from the camp, they would capture him, and strangleand eat him. Sometimes they would kill a man of the Wichitas, if they could catch him away off on the prairie. Therefore the Wichitas drove the Tonkaways off south, and soon afterward moved up across the Arkansas River, and into southern Kansas. Since then the Wichitas and the Tonkaways have never lived together. A Tonkaway chief named Charlie told Ralph J. Weeks, an educated Pawnee, “I have heard that my people are Pawnees, but that we separated long ago.” I am informed that the personal names of the Tonkaways are the same as those of the Pawnees, and are readily comprehended by the latter. Ralph Weeks, while in a Tonkaway lodge, heard a man call out to a girl, addressing her asTsi-sah-ru-rah-ka´-ri-ku, which means “Woman Chief’s House.” Ralph inquired about this name, and found that it was the same in sound as Pawnee, and had the same meaning. The Tonkaways say that some of the Pawnee words are the same as those used by their relations to the south, the Lipans and others. The songs of the Tonkaways are the same as those of the Pawnees, and the latter at once recognize them. The old songs of the Lipans are the same as those of the Pawnees, according to both Pawnee and Tonkaway testimony. Finally, theTonkaways and Lipans claim close relationship. They speak different dialects of the same language.
The Pawnees, however, say that they never knew of the existence of the Tonkaways until they came down into the Indian Territory, and, of course, never met them until after that time. Neither did they know the Caddos. As the Pawnees knew nothing of the Caddos and Tonkaways, so the Wichitas knew nothing of the Arickaras until recently, and were greatly surprised to learn that far to the north there was another tribe which spoke their language.
The Wichitas claim that they and the Caddos are one people. Their languages are said to differ somewhat, but only dialectically.
The southern members of the Pawnee family appear always to have lived on excellent terms with the other wild tribes which inhabited their country. They were allies of the Kiowas, Comanches, and Cheyennes, tribes with which the northern Pawnees were long at war.
The Pawnees came from the south. All the information bearing on their origin, which has as yet been secured, points to the conclusion that the primitive home of this family was in the south.
Although Mr. Dunbar has carefully traced out the later history of several of the members of this group, his researches carry us back scarcely further than the beginning of the present century, and we have no actual knowledge of the origin and early history of the Pawnees. Except the Arickaras, none of the tribes belonging to this family have ever dwelt much north of the Platte River, and in this we have an indication of their southern origin. The traditions of the tribe confirm this suggestion, and Mr. Dunbar has given other reasons, derived from his study of this people, which abundantly justify us in regarding them as migrants from the south.
There are still current among the Pawnees two traditions as to the region from which they came, but both of these are vague, and so lacking in detail as to be of little value except as suggestions which need confirmation before being accepted as having any solid basis of fact. The first of these traditions,now half forgotten, is known only to the very oldest men. It is to the effect that long ago they came from the far southwest, where they used to live in stone houses. This might point to an original home for the Pawnees in Old Mexico, and even suggests a possible connection with the so-called Pueblo tribes, who still live in houses made of stone, and entered from above.
Secret Pipe Chief, a very old Chau-i, the High Priest of the tribe, gave me the history of their wanderings in these words: “Long ago,” he said, “very far back, all of one color were together, but something mysterious happened so that they came to speak different languages. They were all together, and determined that they would separate into different parties to go and get sinew. They could not all go in company, there were too many of them. They were so numerous that when they traveled, the rocks where their lodge poles dragged were worn into deep grooves. Then they were far off in the southwest, and came from beyond two ranges of mountains. When they scattered out, each party became a tribe. At that time the Pawnees and the Wichitas were together. We made that journey, and went so far east that at last we came to the MissouriRiver, and stopped there for a time. When the season came round, we made out of the shoulder blade of a buffalo an implement to cultivate the ground. There we made our fields.”
Another very old man, Bear Chief, a Skidi, said, “Long ago we were far in the southwest, away beyond the Rio Grande. We came north, and settled near the Wichita Mountains. One summer there we planted our corn. So we came from the south. After we left the Wichita Mountains, that summer we came north as far as the Arkansas River, and made our fields, and raised corn. Afterward we went to the Mississippi River where the Missouri runs into it. My father was born while we lived on the Mississippi.” As Bear Chief must be nearly or quite eighty years old, it would seem likely that the Skidi, or some village of that tribe, may have been established on the Mississippi one hundred years ago, but this was not a permanent location.
The second of these traditions tells of a migration from the southeast. It states that the tribe originally came from somewhere in the southeast, that is from what is now Missouri or Arkansas. They started north after sinew—to hunt buffalo—and followed up the game, until they reached the northerncountry—the region of the Republican and the Platte rivers. They found this a pleasant country, abounding in game, and they liked it, and remained there. The Wichitas accompanied them part way on their journey, but turned aside when they had reached southern Kansas, and went south again.
All the traditions agree that up to the time of the journey which brought the Pawnees to their homes on the Solomon, Republican, Platte and Loup rivers, the Wichitas were considered a part of the Pawnee tribe. They agree also that after this separation, the two divisions of the tribe lost sight of each other for a very long time, and that each was entirely ignorant as to what had become of the other. We know that for a long time they were at war, and the difference of the dialects spoken by these two divisions of the family shows that the period of separation was a long one.
The tradition of the migration of the Pawnees from the southwest is evidently much older than the one which tells of their coming from the southeast. Most of the younger men know the latter; but for the account of the journey over the mountains from the southwest and across the Rio Grande, it is necessary to go to the very old men. It is quitepossible that both stories are founded on fact; and, if this is the case, the migration from the southeast may have taken place only a few generations ago. Such a supposition would in part explain its general currency at the present time.
In the existing state of our knowledge of this people, we have no facts to go on, nothing in the nature of evidence as to their early history, and we can only speculate as to the probabilities in regard to their wanderings. It may be conjectured that the Pawnees came from somewhere in Old Mexico, and, either as a number of related tribes, or as a single tribe made up of different bands, they crossed the mountains and the Rio Grande in a body, and wandered eastward across what is now Texas. From this body it seems probable that the ancestors of the Lipans and the Tonkaways were the first to separate themselves. The main tribe perhaps gradually drifted further and further to the east until it had crossed Texas and reached northwestern Louisiana, and perhaps even the neighborhood of the Mississippi River. During this long journey, which must have occupied many years—perhaps many generations—we may imagine that the Huecos and possibly the Keechies dropped behind, and remained on the plains.
How long the Pawnees sojourned in Louisiana no one can say. They now found themselves in a country, which in climate, productions, and topography, differed widely from anything they had before known. Up to this time, these people had always inhabited the high, dry tablelands of Mexico, or the almost equally arid plains of Texas, and now they had come to a country having a heavy rainfall, abounding in swamps, and overgrown with deciduous timber. The traditions of both Skidi and Pawnees speak of a time when they lived in a country where grows the cane which the white men use for fishing poles. We may imagine that this forest country was a barrier to their further progress eastward, and that it turned their steps in a new direction.
When the Pawnees left Louisiana, the Caddos certainly, and perhaps the Keechies and the Tawaconies, were left behind, and for a very long time lived in and near what is now Caddo Parish, Louisiana, where they were at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Geographical names in this region indicate that their residence there was a long one, and Caddo Lake, Caddo Fork, Caddo Gap and a town named Keatchie, still bear testimony of the former occupants of the soil. From there the Caddos moved up to theBrazos River in Texas. They have always kept up a close intimacy with the Wichitas.
Perhaps it was during the sojourn of the Pawnees on the western borders of Louisiana and Arkansas, though it may have been much earlier, that the Skidi and the Arickaras, either as a single tribe, or as already divided into two separate bands, left the Pawnees and moved north and northwest. There appears to be reason for supposing that for a while this section of the tribe lived on the Red River, the Canadian and the Arkansas, and it is quite certain that sometimes they went as far east as the banks of the Mississippi near where St. Louis now is; but their permanent home, since they have been known to the whites, was on the Platte and the Loup rivers in Nebraska.
The Pawnees with the Wichitas moved northwest into what is now the Indian Territory and southern Kansas, where they separated, the latter turning off to the south, and living at various times on the Canadian and Red rivers and near the Wichita Mountains, while the Pawnees proper slowly continued their march northward and westward, residing for a time on the Arkansas and Solomon, the Republican and Platte rivers. Here they again met the Skidi.
It is impossible to conjecture when this settlement in the northern country took place, but it was certainly long ago. Mr. Dunbar has pointed out that “O-kŭt-utandoku´-kat´signify strictly above and below (of a stream) respectively. Now their villages have usually been situated upon the banks of the Platte, the general course of which is from west to east. Hence each of these words has acquired a new meaning,i. e., west and east.” In the same wayPŭk-tĭs´-tu—toward the Omahas, has come to mean north; andKi´ri-ku´ruks-tu—toward the Wichitas, to mean south. The coining of such words points to a long sojourn by the Pawnees in the region of the Platte. It is interesting to note that the Omahas have never in historic times lived north of the Pawnees, but always east of them, though we know that long ago they did live to the north.
These remarks on the movements of the Pawnees are, to be sure, very largely speculative, but speculation guided by the hints gathered from conversations with the older men. It is a surmise as to what may have been the wanderings of these people. If it were possible to talk with all the different tribes of the family, something more definite might be reached, but at this late day this seems hopeless. Astudy of the Lipans, and an investigation of their relationships with other southwestern tribes, might furnish us clues of the utmost importance in tracing the origin of the Pawnee family.
Ranking high among the Pawnee bands, for their intelligence, energy and courage, stand the Skidi. Their past history is obscure, and we know little about it beyond the fact that it was different from that of the other bands. Although the relationship between them is perfectly well established, still both Pawnee and Skidi traditions agree that the two tribes were originally distinct, and that their first meeting took place long ago, but after the migration of the Pawnees to the northern country. We know, too, that the Arickaras were close neighbors and near relatives of the Skidi, and it is probable that they constituted a band, village, or division of that tribe.
It is believed by those who should be well informed, that the northward migration of the Rees took place not more than a century ago. One tradition of the separation runs in this way: The Skidi started out on a hunt, a part going ahead and theothers following later. The first party were killing buffalo, when they were attacked by a large war party of Sioux. These got between the two parties of the Skidi, driving one of them back to the village, while the other retreated northward. This retreat continued until they had been driven some distance up the Missouri River, where their enemies left them. They remained there through the winter, and planted their corn in the spring, nor did they apparently for some time make any attempt to rejoin their tribe. After some years, however, the two bands came together on the Loup, and for a time lived together. The Rees even went further south, to the neighborhood of the Wichita Mountains, where the Pawnees at that time were living, but soon afterward they went north again, and rejoined the Skidi on the Loup, and lived near them there, and on the Platte near Scott’s Bluffs. It was not long, however, before a disagreement arose between the Rees and the Skidi, and the Rees again moved off north. It is probable that this quarrel may have originated in the fact that the Rees wished to make war on the whites, but there is some reason to believe that there was also jealousy about the head chieftainship of the two bands.
The testimony of men still living indicates that about one hundred years ago some of the Skidi lived on the Mississippi River, near the present site of St. Louis, and it is said that it was only the coming in of the white settlers in considerable numbers that caused them to move further westward. I am inclined to regard this location as only a temporary one, and to believe that their real home, prior to this, had been to the west, on the Platte and Loup rivers.
It is, of course, impossible to fix, even approximately, the time when the Pawnees and the Skidi came together, but it probably was soon after the Pawnees had settled on the Republican in their northward migration. It is said that their first meeting was friendly, and that they made a treaty, and smoked together. But no peace between two such warlike tribes could last very long, and there were frequent collisions and disagreements. There was a sharp rivalry between the Chau-i and the Skidi, and their disputes finally culminated in an unprovoked attack by the Skidi upon some Pawnees, while they were hunting buffalo, in which about one hundred of the latter were killed. The Pawnees made ready to avenge this injury, and marshaled all their forces. They made a night march to thevicinity of the Skidi village, which is said to have been on the north side of the Loup, distant from their own only about twenty miles, and just at daylight sent out about one hundred warriors, all mounted on dark colored horses, to decoy the Skidi from the village. These men, lying down on their horses, and covering themselves with their robes, represented buffalo, and rode over the hill in sight of the Skidi village. The ruse was successful. The Skidi at once started out to kill the buffalo, leaving their village unprotected. The disguised warriors fled, leading the Skidi further away, while the Pawnees who were in reserve rushed into the defenseless village, and captured it, almost without striking a blow. They took all the inhabitants back with them to their own village. The Skidi were forced to sue for peace; and for their breach of faith were heavily fined by the victorious Pawnees. They were incorporated into the tribe, and since that time have lived as a part of the Pawnee nation. This event was probably the culminating point of a series of petty fights and skirmishes, which must have been annoying to the Pawnees. This fighting went on within the memory of men now living, though there are but few who are old enough to remember it.
Curly Chief, who is about 65 years old, can remember a man who took part in these wars, and whose name was “The-Skidi-wounded-him-in-the-leg.” Bear Chief, a very old and decrepit Skidi, and Secret Pipe Chief, an old Chau-i, have both told me that they can remember one or more fights between the Skidi and the other bands.
A rather interesting evidence of the feeling once existing between the Skidi and the other bands, and even now surviving among some of the oldest men, is the statement by Bear Chief that the three other bands were known as “Big Shields,” the implication being that as they hid themselves behind these big shields they were not so brave as those who used smaller ones. The existence of such a feeling at the present day indicates that the final conquest of the Skidi and their incorporation into the Pawnee tribe took place not very long ago.
Mr. Dunbar sums up the traditions of the meeting of the tribes, their wars and subsequent union, in the following language: “The historic basis of this may be somewhat as follows: In the migration of the Pawnees from the south, the Skidi preceded the other bands perhaps by nearly a century. With them were the Arickaras. These two bandstogether possessed themselves of the region of the Loup. When the other bands arrived they were regarded as intruders, and hence arose open hostilities. The result of the struggle was that the two bands were forced to admit the new comers, and aid in reducing the surrounding territory. Subsequently the Arickaras seem to have wandered, or more probably, to have been driven from the confederacy, and to have passed up the Missouri. Later the Skidi, in consequence of some real or fancied provocation, attempted to retrieve their losses, but were sorely punished, and henceforth obliged to content themselves with a subordinate position in the tribe.”
It is said that in the olden time the Skidi were very powerful. The tribe was made up of four bands or villages, each of which numbered 5,000 people, or 20,000 for the whole tribe. This estimate, which is founded merely on the statements of old men now living, is probably excessive. There is no doubt, however, that they were a large and powerful tribe, while their warlike habits and fierce natures caused them to be feared and hated by all their neighbors.
The four divisions of the Skidi tribe exist now only in name, and the origin of these names isalmost forgotten. As the result of much effort and inquiry, I have secured the following list: