Pawnee

By Gerald F. Reid and John Beierle

Pani, Panzas, Pawni

The Pawnee are an American Indian group currently living in Oklahoma. The name Pawnee comes from the term PARIKI, "horn", and refers to the traditional manner of dressing the hair in which the scalp-lock is stiffened with fat and paint and made to stand erect like a curved horn. The Pawnee called themselves Chahiksichahiks, meaning "men of men".

Throughout much of the historic period the Pawnee inhabited the territory centered in the valleys of the Loup and Platte rivers and along the Republican River in what is now the state of Nebraska in the central United States. In 1874-1875 they moved [ed. note: relocated by the Pawnee Indian Agency] from this territory to reservation lands in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The region of the Loup, Platte, and Republican rivers consists largely of high and dry grass-covered plain interrupted by rivers and river valleys and is characterized by a sub-humid climate. Trees are nearly absent except along the river courses.

In the early part of the nineteenth century the Pawnee numbered between 9,000 and 10,000. Subsequently, the population declined due to warfare and European diseases; smallpox epidemics in 1803 and 1825 were especially devastating. In 1859 the population was estimated at 4,000, in 1876 at 2,000, and in 1900 at 650. The population subsequently increased to over 2,000 in 1970. The U.S. population census of 1990 as presented in the Statistical Record of Native North Americans, 2nd edition, gives a total figure of 3,387 Pawnee in all of the United States, of which 156 are located in Oklahoma, and the remainder of 3,231 scattered throughout the country, with the heaviest concentrations in the southern and western regions (Statistical Record of Native North Americans, 2nd edition, 1995: 196).

The Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan linguistic family.

The ancestors of the Pawnee inhabited the Plains region of North America since at least A.D. 1100 and migrated to the region of the Loup, Platte and Republican rivers from a southeasterly direction sometime prior to European contact. Contact with Spanish explorers may have occurred as early as 1541, but direct and sustained contact with Europeans did not come until the eighteenth century. During the contact period the native groups neighboring the Pawnee included the Arapaho and Teton to the west, the Ponca to the north, the Omaha, Oto and Kansa to the east and the Kiowa to the south. In 1803 the Pawnee territory passed under the control of the U.S. government through the Louisiana Purchase and in a series of treaties between 1833 and 1876 the Pawnee ceded their lands to the Federal government and in 1874-1876 removed to the Indian Territory. The gradual ceding of territory to the United States was done reluctantly, but out of necessity as white migration, depletion of the bison herds, and warfare on the plains between native peoples made it increasingly difficult for the Pawnee to carry on the hunting and farming way of life in their traditional territory. In 1870 the Pawnee split over the question of resettlement, but the issue was decided when they were forced to seek the protection of federal authorities after a massacre of Pawnee by the Dakota in 1873. In 1892 their reservation lands were allotted on an individual basis and the Pawnee became citizens of the United States. The transition to individual land ownership proved difficult as the Pawnee tradition of village living proved inconsistent with individual farming.

In the historic period prior to 1833 the Pawnee bands were settled in four groups of villages in valleys along the Platte River. Villages were large, and relatively permanent, and consisted of clusters of earthlodges surrounded by fields. In the nineteenth century some villages were surrounded by a sod wall three to four feet high for defensive purposes. Earthlodges were circular and constructed of a log frame plastered over with layers of grass and packed earth. Lodges varied in size according to the number of occupants, but averaged approximately fifteen feet in height and forty feet in diameter. In the summer the occupants of the earthlodge moved outdoors and slept under a brush arbor. Tipis of bison hide were used for shelter on the hunt.

In the historic period until the latter part of the nineteenth century the Pawnee subsistence pattern consisted of farming and hunting, with a minimal amount of gathering. The principal crops were maize, beans, squash, and pumpkins; the principal game animal was the bison. Horses acquired from the Spanish starting in the late seventeenth century, stimulated the development of a more nomadic, hunting way of life, but this never supplanted the farming basis of life to the degree that it did among other Plains Indian groups. At about the same time European firearms were acquired from the French, but these had less economic impact; even into the nineteenth century the bow and arrow was the weapon of choice among bison hunters. Throughout the nineteenth century the Pawnee were under constant pressure by the U.S. government to give up hunting and to adopt European methods of farming. The Pawnee resisted this pressure for a time until white migration, dwindling bison herds, increased population pressure on food resources and, finally, resettlement in Indian Territory, made the traditional hunting and farming way of life impossible.

Work in skins, particularly bison skins, was highly developed and provided the Pawnee with tents, ropes, rawhide, containers, blankets, robes, clothing, and footwear. Other by-products of the bison were used for bows, bowstring, thread, hammers, scrapers, awls, and fuel. Pottery making was not a highly developed skill, but did exist and persisted into the nineteenth century when clay pots were replaced by copper and iron vessels obtained from European-Americans.

Virtually self-sufficient in aboriginal times, Pawnee trade with neighboring groups was limited. After contact they traded with whites for horses, firearms and ammunition, steel knives, axes, hoes, brass kettles and whiskey.

Traditionally, women tended the fields and men were responsible for hunting, but this division of labor broke down during the second half of the nineteenth century with the decline of bison hunting and the gradual acceptance of plow agriculture as the basis of subsistence.

Traditionally, each village possessed its own fields, the use of which was allotted to individuals by the village chief. Upon the individual's death the lands reverted to the village and were reallotted.

The basic kinship grouping among the Pawnee was a division into north and south, or winter and summer people. Membership in these divisions was inherited matrilineally. In games, religious ceremonies, and other social gatherings the people were divided along hereditary lines.

Kin terms followed the Crow system.

Marriages were arranged and negotiated primarily by the mother's brother. First-cousin marriages were prohibited and village endogamy generally prevailed. Polygyny was practiced and as a rule was strictly sororal. Residence was matrilocal. Strong emotional ties generally did not exist between husband and wife and, while divorce was rare, it could be effected by either party.

Although nuclear families occasionally lived alone, most often several such families lived together in the earth lodge.

Traditionally, early childhood training was in the hands of the grandparents, with strict discipline and harsh punishment the norm. Youths were allowed considerable sexual freedom until puberty, after which time separation of the sexes was enforced until marriage. A mother's brother's wife often served as a sexual partner for a young man from the time of puberty until he married.

Nineteenth century Pawnee society included a series of class-like hierarchical divisions. Highest in rank were chiefs, followed by warriors, priests, and medicine men. Next in rank were common people without power or influence and below them were semi- outcasts, persons who had violated tribal laws and who lived on the outskirts of the villages. There was also a category of captured non-Pawnee slaves. Men's societies concerned with warfare and hunting were a prominent feature of Pawnee society. In addition, there were eight medicine men's societies and numerous private organizations that functioned for the public good in times of need.

The Pawnee were divided into four main groups or bands: 1) the Skidi (Skiri) or Wolf, the largest band, 2) the Chaui (Chawi) or Grand, 3) Kitkehahki (Kitkahahki) or Republican, and 4) the Pitahauerat (Pitahawirata) or Tappage. The Chaui were generally recognized as the leading band; however, the nature of the relationship between the four groups is not clear. Aboriginally the four bands may have been independent of one another, with greater political unity developing in response to the pressures of acculturation. As exhibited by the Skidi Pawnee in the early nineteenth century, band political structure consisted of federated villages held together by a governing council of chiefs and common participation in a ceremonial cycle. Within the band, authority resided with four chiefs, the position of which was inherited matrilineally. Each band consisted of one or more villages. However, with the pressures of acculturation and European contact there was a progressive diminution of the number of villages occupied and in later history two or more bands frequently dwelt together in the same village. Each component village had a chief whose responsibilities included the allotting of village lands to individual users. The position of village chief was inherited, generally by the eldest son, but subject to the approval of a council of chiefs and other leading men.

The Pawnee considered violence within the village a serious matter and generally made every attempt to avoid it or stop it when it occurred. For the most part, public opinion acted as the mechanism of social control, however, to ensure order each village had a small police society whose head was an old warrior selected by the village chief. On the communal bison hunts held in the late summer and autumn of each year a special society of military police or soldiers was selected to prevent individual hunters form leaving the camp and disturbing the bison herds.

In prehistoric and early historic times interband disputes and violence was not uncommon, particularly between the Skidi and the Chaui or Grand Pawnee.

The Pawnee had a highly integrated system of religious beliefs that resisted European missionization well into the nineteenth century. In this system of beliefs all life was understood to have derived from the meeting of male (east) and female (west) forces in the sky. The supernatural power at the zenith of the sky where these forces met was known as Tirawa. Tirawa produced the world through a series of violent storms and created star gods, who in turn created humanity. In 1891, along with other Plains Indian groups, the Pawnee participated in the Ghost Dance, a revitalization movement envisioning the return of the dead from the spirit world and the disappearance of the white man from the land. The two most prominent star powers were the Evening Star, the goddess of darkness and fertility who lived in the western sky, and Morning Star, the god of fire and light who was located in the eastern sky. Next in rank to Tirawa, Evening Star and Morning Star were the gods of the four world quarters in the northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest who supported the heavens.

Pawnee religious specialists consisted of a group of wise men or priests who derived their power and authority from a star planet and held their position as a matter of heredity. They were understood to stand between normal men and Tirawa and supervised a yearly round of religious ceremonies conducted to bring success in farming, hunting and warfare. Other specialists were the shamans, medicine men, or doctors, whose powers were distinct from that of the priests. (See section entitled "medicine" below).

The foci of Pawnee religious ceremonies were sacred bundles of religious objects believed to have been passed down a line of ancestors. Each village had its own sacred bundle with which its members identified strongly and each sacred bundle was a medium through which the people communicated with Tirawa. The annual ceremonial cycle began with the first thunder in the spring and concluded with the harvest of maize in the autumn. Among the Skidi the climax of the cycle was the sacrifice of a young woman to the Morning Star at the time of the summer solstice in order to ensure prosperity and long life. The sacrifice to the Morning Star persisted until about 1838. Another important ceremonial event concerned preparations for the bison hunt. The ceremony began with fasting, prayer and sacrifice by the priests, followed by a public ritual in which the priests appealed to Tirawa for aid. The ritual concluded with three days of uninterrupted dancing.

Pawnee music was simple in its melody and rhythm and was an important part of Pawnee ceremonies activities. At the time of the Ghost Dance songs secured in dreams or visions emphasized memories of former days, reunion with the dead and other aspects of the Ghost Dance revitalization movement.

The Pawnee recognized witchcraft and, ultimately, anger and hostility, to be a major cause of disease. Pawnee religious specialists also included shamans who cured the sick through powers believed to have been acquired from animal spirits. Shamans were organized into societies with specific rituals performed twice each year in order to perpetuate and renew their powers.

As with disease, death was believed to sometimes be the result of hostility and witchcraft. Burial preparations varied according to the rank and position of the deceased. Individuals of importance and those who died in extreme old age were painted with a sacred red ointment, dressed in their best costumes and wrapped in a bison robe before burial. It was believed that after death the soul of the deceased ascended to heaven to become a star or, as in the case of those who were diseased or died cowardly in battle, traveled to a village of spirits in the south.

Documents referred to in this section are included in the eHRAF collection and are referenced by author, date of publication, and eHRAF document number.

The Pawnee file consists of eighteen English language documents dealing primarily with traditional Pawnee ethnography for the period of approximately 1850 to the 1920s. There is a slight focus in the file on materials dealing with the Skidi (Skiri) band of Pawnee. Probably the most comprehensive ethnographic information on the Pawnee as a whole is found in Weltfish (1965, no. 14), further supplemented with data from Smith (1852, no. 10), Grinnell (1889, no. 20), and the oral traditions described in Blaine (1990, no. 19). Major topics discussed in this file relate to culture history, ceremonialism, and religious beliefs. There is relatively little information on kinship. The single best reference in this file on Pawnee culture history is found in Hyde (1974, no. 17). This document is further supplemented with data from Wedel (1936, no. ll), Weltfish (1965, no. 14), and Lesser (1933, no. 2). Ceremonialism and religious beliefs are well covered in Fletcher (1940, no. 1), Lesser (1933, no. 2), Murie (1914, no. 4), Linton (1923, no. 9), Murie (1989, no. 15), and Blaine (1983, no. 23). Other documents deal with more specific ethnographic topics such as music and songs in Densmore (1929, no. 3); social organization in Dorsey and Murie (1940, no. 5), and Murie (1914, no. 4); literature in the form of hero stories and folktales in Grinnell (1961, 1889, nos. 12 & 20); and ethnoastronomy in Chamberlain (1992, 1982, nos. 18 & 21).

For more detailed information on the content of the individual works in this file, see the abstracts in the citations preceding each document.

This culture summary is based on the article "Pawnee" by Gerald F. Reid in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 1, 1991. Timothy O'Leary and David Levinson, eds. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall & Co. Population figures were updated and additional data were added to the section entitled "Religious Practitioners" by John Beierle in 1997. The synopsis and indexing notes were written by John Beierle in February, 1997.

• criers -- categories 203, 624

• errand men -- category 624

• KURAHUS -- priests -- category 793

• Skidi (Skiri) historical federations -- category 631

• soldiers -- enforcers and promoters of the reservation agency's "civilization" programs -- category 625

• star charts -- category 821

Hyde, George E. Pawnee Indians. Denver: University of Denver Press, 1951

Murie, James R. Pawnee Indian Societies. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 11(4). New York, 1914

Oswalt, Wendell H. "The Pawnee." This Land Was Theirs: A Study of the North American Indian, edited by Wendell H. Oswalt, 239-289New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1966

Reddy, Marlita A., ed. Statistical Record of Native North Americans, 2nd edition. Detroit, Gale Research, Inc., 1995

Weltfish, Gene. The Lost Universe. New York: Basic Books, 1965