While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
As in the
case of the Osage and Kansas, much of the history of the Pawnees was told
in the accounts of explorations. It has been already noted that the view
that the Turk was a Pawnee was scarcely tenable. It is much more likely
that he was a Quapaw. In the account of Coronado the argument was made
that Quivira was the country immediately north of the Arkansas River,
extending to the northern watershed of that stream, and the land of the
Wichita. Also that Harahey was the country of the Pawnees, and began at
the north boundary of the Wichita domain, or Quivira. From these
conclusions future students are not likely to depart. Investigations to be
made will, no doubt, confirm them. In the account of the Kansas the bounds
of the country of the Caddoan linguistic family were discussed. There is
no fear that the views there arrived at can be successfully controverted.
Prior to the northward migration of the Kansas from the mouth of the Osage
the Caddoan eastern boundary was the Missouri River. The Kansas penetrated
the Caddoan country to the mouth of Independence Creek, but were there
halted by the Pawnees, who continued to dwell on the west bank of the
Missouri about the mouth of Wolf River into historic times. The tribes of
the Siouan family passed to the Upper Missouri by keeping to the
east shore of that stream and to the country still eastward. The Caddoan
territory taken by the Kansas and held when they lived at Independence
Creek did not extend westward from the Missouri beyond the heads of the
small streams. And the Kansas did not venture into the valley of the
Kansas River until long after the establishment of Louisiana. The Pawnees
kept the Kansas confined to the narrow strip along the Missouri until the
shifting of the tribes and their concentration in villages due to the
coming of the white man, and the appearance of white traders among them.
Then the Pawnees ceased to defend the valley of the Kansas River below the
mouth of the Big Blue. Finding the valley practically abandoned, the
Kansas entered it and ascended it to the Blue, but were ever in terror of
the more powerful Pawnees. These matters are
all factors in determining the extent of the explorations of Coronado and
subsequent Spanish expeditions. In treating the Pawnees it was found
necessary to make this review of tribal holdings and movements west of the
Missouri.
The Pawnee lands in Kansas were taken by the Government
through treaties with the Kansas and Osages. The cession of the Pawnees in
Kansas was insignificant. They had a much better title to Kansas west of
the Blue than any other tribes. Irving found the remains of their towns on
the Cimarron as late as 1832. Brower claimed to have traced them or their
kindred from the Ozarks to the forks of the Kansas River. They lived on
the Lower Neosho, in the vicinity of the present Vinita, in the time of Du
Tisne. But they were despoiled by the agents of the Government, and their
place in Kansas history was thereby circumscribed.
The name Pawnee, Dunbar tells us, comes from the
word pá-rik-i, a horn. The tribal mark of the Pawnees was the
scalp-lock. No other tribe had one like it. With the Pawnees the
scalp-lock was bound about and held in a solid body by buffalo tallow and
the paints used by the Indians. It was thus so stiffened that it stood
erect. Sometimes it was curved back in the shape of the horn of a buffalo
bull. It is said that the term, pá-rik-i, at one time embraced the Pawnee
Picts, known to us now as the Wichita Indians.
The four bands of
the Pawnees were known among themselves by the following names:
1. Xau-i, or Grand Pawnees
2. Kit-ke-hak-i, or Republican Pawnees
3. Pit-a-hau-e-rat, or Tapage Pawnees
4. Ski-di, or Loup Pawnees
The origin and meaning of some of these tribal
designations are lost. Indeed, only the Pit-a-hau-e-rat signification is
remembered, and is supposed to imply that the Tapage were the Noisy
Pawnees. They were also known as the Smoky Hill Pawnees, having lived on
that stream in what is now Kansas well down into historic times. In 1836
they pointed out to Mr. Dunbar the remains of their villages on the Smoky
Hill. In 1719 there was a Pawnee town at the mouth of the Republican
River—most probably a Tapage Pawnee town.
There were, among the Pawnees, the usual divisions of
gentes, but the names of these cannot now be stated with certainty. Morgan
gives the following as probable names of Pawnee gentes, but does not
pretend that the list embraces all the gentes of the Pawnees as their
organization originally existed:
1. Bear
2. Beaver
3. Eagle
4. Buffalo
5. Deer
6. Owl.
