Franklin County, Nebraska

For Another Day

This week’s article is gleaned from the Pawnee history material from the Nebraska State Historical Society.

One of my Friends interested in Nebraska History shared this information with me about the Pawnee Indians, and as I was reading, I thought it would be of interest to residents of southern Nebraska.

The History of the Pawnee culture before the pioneers came to Nebraska is explained in the pamphlet, which was printed in 1952.

Together, we can learn about the Pawnee Indians that ran our creeks and highways. In the future, I hope to run more personal stories on the Pawnees. This will give us a nice introduction to the history of this tribe.

These are many Indian Lodge and burial sites in our county. Since 1300 A.D. the Pawnee had been living in our area. In the beginning of my studies, I was only interested in life in Franklin County since 1870, but now I am growing so interested in the Indian culture of Franklin County.

The Pawnee

Early History: The Pawnee have been known to while men since perhaps 1541, and certainly since 1675. they were the most numerous and powerful of the tribes of the Caddoan linguistic stock and one of the most important of the entire plains area.

Since their earliest historical mention, they have been residents in Nebraska and the extreme northern portion of Kansas, particularly on the Loup, Platte, and Republican Rivers. As a tribe, they were friendly to the Europeans and later to the Americans, for whom they served as scouts.

The Nebraska Pawnees were usually divided into four bands, each who often occupied one or more separate earth lodges. Chaui (Indian Name) or Grand, the Kitkehahki or Republican, Pitahauerat or Tappage, and the Skidi or Wolf. The Skidi appear to have been less closely bound to the other bands and they may have come from a different ancestor. The name Pawnee is of uncertain origin but it may have been delivered from the Pawnee mode of dressing the scalp lock with a horn, which was called Pa’-rik-i. The head of the warriors in all four of the bands except the Skidi was shaven. A small tuft or topknot, which remained, was daubed with bison fat and red ochre until stiff enough to stand erect or to curve backward slightly like a horn.

The territory claimed by the Pawnee during the historic period was bound on the north by the Niobrara River, on the south by the Arkansas or possible the Canadian River, on the east by the Missouri River and on the west indefinitely toward the Rockies. Actually the area was more limited by hostile bribes, particularly to the south and west. The Pawnee claims in this area were often disputed or ignored by neighboring tribes.

Foods which could be gathered along the streams included chokecherries, wild plums, grapes, black cherries, wild potatoes, turnips, and turkey peas. Wild animals of many types provided game. Herds of bison wandered on the plains, and their meat, next to corn, was their main food. Other game included beaver, elk, deer, bear, wolves, and wildcat, which also provided hides for clothing and for trading to the whites. Smaller animals as well as birds and fish were common.

Remains of early villages and burials in Nebraska and Kansas have been designated by archaeologists who study them as belonging to the Upper Republican people who may have been Pawnee. These villages were small, with three to ten rectangular earth lodges, which may vary in diameter from twenty to forty feet. Even at this early date (1300 A. D.), these people were farmers who raised large crops of native corn, sunflowers, squash, and perhaps other foods, which they stored in jug-shaped pits. The pits were usually located beneath the floor of the lodges. These small villages were unfortified and there is little evidence of warfare. Burials were made individually in the flesh, or in mass bone burials, which are called ossuaries by the archaeologists. After exposure of the bodies on scaffolds or in trees, the bones were gathered and placed in these ossuaries.

By the late 18th and early 19th century, when adequate descriptions of the Pawnee were provided by the early white explorers, the Pawnee were living in large villages of circular earth lodges, which might include more than a thousand people. Among the many early American explorers were Lewis and Clark (1804), Captain Zebulon Pike (1806), Major Sibley (1811), and Major Stephen Long (1819).

As white settlements increased in the Nebraska area, the Pawnee were contained to smaller and smaller areas. In 1857 increased friction between the settler and the Pawnee led to the treaty of Table Creek, whereby the Pawnee were assigned a reservation 30 miles long and 15 miles wide, with headquarters near Genoa in present Nance County. Here, they were exposed to pressure by the white settlers and to hostile attacks by the Dakota-Sioux. On August 3, 1873, the Pawnee suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Dakota-Sioux while on a buffalo hunt in southwestern Nebraska near the present town of Trenton, in Hitchcock County. By 1875, the tribe had given up it attempts to retain the old home land and had moved to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.

The Pawnee village: The Pawnee, in come with other farming groups in the Missouri Valley and eastern Plains area, used two, and possible three distinct type of dwellings. In there permanent villages, occupied four or five months of each year, the communal earth lodge was characteristic. Periodically, however, usually twice each year, the entire community abandoned the village to hunt bison, and used the bison skin tipi, so typical of the nomadic tribes of Nebraska. The earth lodges were circular in shape with a floor excavated slightly below ground level, A framework consisting of four or more center posts with rafters, was covered with brush and dirt. An opening in the center of the roof provided a smoke hole for the fireplace directly below. A covered entrance usually extended to east or southeast. Opposite the entrance at the bank of the lodge was the altar on which a sacred bison skull usually rested. Beds fashioned from small timbers were placed around the outer walls. In addition to the Tipi and the earth lodge, some of the more poor families are reported to have constructed a dome-shaped brush shelter for temporary use in the hunt.

In common with most Central Plains tribes that depended upon cultivation and other foods, the Pawnee made very extensive use of the jug-shaped storage pits, which were commonly located outside the limits of the lodge. Archaeologists are particularly interested in the abandoned storage pits, which were often filled with ash, broken pottery, and other village refuse.

It is reported many of the later Pawnee villages were protected by means of earth and sod walls, which surrounded the village area and provided some protection to the defenders. Other village features included horse corrals constructed of poles and located near the earth lodges. On either side of certain villages there were large level areas where various games were played, not only by the children but also by the adults.

Religion: The Pawnee were essentially a corn growing people. Corn was their Mother. It figured in their rituals and in their mythology even more than the bison. Two ears of corn went into the sacred bundles of the tribe and were renewed annually. The most important ceremonies, including the sacrifice of a maiden to the Morning Star by the Skidi, were directed as much toward securing a bountiful corn crop as toward success on the bison hunt. The religion of the Pawnee was, in some ways, more highly developed than any other Plains tribe. At the head of their deities stood Tiwara, the creator of the universe, who seems to have been conceived as a purely spiritual being. Below him there were a great number of gods and varying importance who were divided into tow great classes: those of the earth, and those of the heavens. The former were inferior in rank to the heavenly gods, and were the special guardians of individuals and secret societies. They were identified with animals.

The latter were the guardians and helpers of the people as a whole and were, with a few exceptions, identified with stars. The most important of the heavenly gods were the Morning and Evening Stars, who represented respectively the male and female principle. The first being on earth was believed to have sprung from their union.

Lost yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset,
Two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes.
No reward is offered, for they are gone forever. Horace Mann.

Rena Donovan, For Another Day.

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