with willows, then with grass and dirt, giving the
appearance at a little distance of an immense collection of
"potato hills," all of a circular shape and oval. The
entrance is through a passage walled with earth, the hole in
the center at top serving both for window and main room by
partitions of willow, rush or flag, some of them being
neatly and tidily constructed, and altogether these lodges
are quite roomy and comfortable, and each is frequently the
abode of two or more families. In these villages there is no
regularity of streets, walks, or alleys, but each builds in
a rather promiscuous manner, having no other care than to
taste and convenience.
The tribe is divided into five bands, each
being under a special chief or leader, and the whole
confederation being under one principal chief. Each band has
its habitation separate and distinct from the other, three
bands living in villages adjoining and all composing one
village, the other two villages, some little distance. There
is frequently some considerable rivalry between the several
bands in fighting, hunting, and other sports, and not
infrequently one band commits thefts upon the effects of
another.
At this time, we are told, the Pawnees had
several thousand horses, but owing to the hard winter
hundreds had died from sore-tongue and other diseases. The
animals lived out all the winter upon the dry grass; but if
the snow was too deep for them to reach it, cottonwood trees
were cut down and the horses would subsist upon the bark.
These horses were above the luxuries of civilized life, and
refused to eat corn when it was placed before them. They
were valued at from thirty to sixty dollars each.
The Pawnees at this time usually took two
general hunts each year in which all the people, old and
young, great and small, participated, abandoning their
villages to go to the buffalo range. From the spoils of the
summer hunt they made jerked meat and lodge skins; and from
those of the fall hunt, in October and November, they made
robes, furs, tanned skins, and dried meat. These Indians had
a field of considerable extent near each village where the
land was allotted to the various families, and goodly
quantities of corn and beans were grown. With these and a
little flour and sugar they managed to eke out a miserable
existence, sometimes full-fed and sometimes starved.
The females are the working bees of the
hive; they dig up the soil, raise and gather the crops, cut
timber and build the lodges, pack wood and water, cook,
nurse the babies, carry all the burdens, tan the skins and
make the robes and moccasins. The lords of the other sex
recline by the fire or in the shade, kill the game and their
enemies, do the stealing and most of the eating, wear the
most ornaments, and play the dandy in their way to a
scratch. They are of a tall, graceful, and athletic figure,
as straight as an arrow and as proud as a lord, whilst the
squaws are short, thick, stooping, poorly clad, filthy, and
squalid. Parentless children and the very aged are sometimes
left behind, or by the wayside, to perish as useless.
Pike visited the Republican Pawnees in
1806; they dwelt near the south line of the state until
about 1812, when they joined the rest of the band north of
the Platte river. Dunbar3 gives the location of
the various tribes in 1834; the Choui band resided on the
south bank of the Platte, twenty miles above the mouth of
the Loup; the Kit-ke-hak-i lived eighteen miles northwest,
on the north side of the Loup; the Pita-how-e-rat, eleven
miles farther up the Loup, and the Skidi, five miles above
these; and he says they changed their villages every eight
or ten years. In 1833 the Pawnees ceded the territory south
of the Platte to the United States. In 1857 they ceded the
territory north of the Platte, except their reservation in
Nance county. The territory ceded, according to Chas. C.
Royce,4 embraced the central third of the entire
state. The reservation above mentioned was ceded in 1876,
and the Pawnees were taken to Indian Territory, where they
now have a reservation.
The various branches of the Siouan
linguistic stock have come to this state at five different
times. The first were the Mandans, whose coming is shrouded
in antiquity. Catlin claims to have traced their earthworks
and habitat down the Ohio river and up the Mis-
3 Mag. Am. Hist., vols.
4 and 5.
4 18th Rept. Bureau of
Ethnology, pt. 2.
|