Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales Part 17

"Some time after we had talked together, and made up our minds what we would do, we selected certain young men that we could depend on, and told them that we were on the warpath. This was done in this way. We selected a pipe with which to have a sacred smoke, filled it and smoked. Then we called together into the lodge the others, who did not know our purpose. After they had a.s.sembled, I filled the pipe, and said, 'We are going on a war party. We have filled this pipe, and must decide what is to be done.' Then I pa.s.sed the pipe to the man who sat next to me. If he wished to join us he smoked, and pa.s.sed it to the next man. It was not allowed for any one to smoke unless he would go with this party. Some might refuse the pipe, saying, 'I have decided to go with another party.' The smoking of the pipe was a promise that the leader could depend on the man who smoked.

"They used to have a certain ceremony to follow before starting out on the warpath. It was something handed down, a special manner of praying to _Ti-ra'-wa_ that he would bless them in their warfare.

"At last everything was ready for the start. The young men had their packs made up. They carried cooked pounded corn, and pounded buffalo meat mixed with tallow; and sometimes the loads were heavy. Some would carry ten pairs of moccasins, each one stuffed full of corn, or pounded buffalo meat. They were well fed. The loads were so heavy that at first we would only make short marches. The leaders had to see that the young men were not overworked.

"When all was ready, the priest who performed the ceremonies met us.

He brought with him the sacred bundle which we were to take with us.

At night when it was all still, after every one was asleep, the ceremonies were performed. We smoked and worshiped to the east and west, and to the north and south, and prayed for success.

"On that night we started, and went as far as we could; and the next day, toward evening, when we stopped, we dug out a fire-place, like the one in a lodge, and we two leaders sat by it, facing the east, while before us were the sacred things. The leader has to be a good orator, he has to speak to his young men, and advise them well, encouraging them to be strong-hearted. He would speak to them and say, 'We have but a short time to live, so while we are on this trip let us determine to be single-minded. Let us all look to _Ti-ra'-wa_, who is the ruler over all things, and ask him to take pity on us, and bless our warpath. We must respect the animals that the ruler has made and not kill any of them; no birds, nor wolves, nor any creeping things.'

Not a night pa.s.sed but that, after we were seated in a circle, I would talk to the party, and pray, and hope that _Ti-ra'-wa_ would bless us and take pity on us, and that we might be the party that would have good success. On my war parties I had to watch at all times, even when I was resting, to see that my young men should, before they slept, pray to _Ti-ra'-wa_ that they might dream something good, and that it might come to pa.s.s.

"The old priest who had performed the ceremonies, and had let me take the sacred things, had told me to kill a particular kind of animal, a deer, and sacrifice it. I sent some spies ahead to look over the country, and a messenger came back from them, saying that they had seen some animals. He did not describe them, and I ordered the messenger to have the hunter kill them. I heard the report of a gun.

The hunter with two shots killed three. They were antelope. When the hunter came to me he told me what he had done, and described the animals which he had killed. They were not the animals I had been directed to kill for the sacrifice. I hesitated, for I did not know what to do. I did not wish to eat these animals before the sacrifice had been made. To do this is bad. It troubled me. I was troubled, because if we ate them it would look as if we cared nothing for _Ti-ra'-wa_. Finally we ate what had been killed, and made no sacrifice. Afterward we killed two more and ate them, and still made no sacrifice.

"One night I dreamed that the hunter had shot a buffalo. It fell, but as we went up to it, it got up and ran off. We went on for eight days, and had made no sacrifice to _Ti-ra'-wa_. One day my scouts saw a man sitting on a hill. Some of them wanted to shoot at him, but the others said 'no.' They came back to tell me about it, and when they had returned to the place where they had seen him, the man was gone. The man had seen my spies. Not far off was a village, and the warriors in it came to look for us, but we ran away. They hunted for us, but we had got out of their sight. After this we came back home."

Curly Chief, second chief of the Kit-ke-hahk'-i band, is the last, and he tells how he sacrificed a scalp:

"It was in the fall, before the winter buffalo hunt was made, that I thought I would go on the warpath. Every little while I would call a few men to sit down with me, and would tell them that I had it in mind to go on the warpath.

"The people went out on the winter hunt and killed buffalo, and while they were on their way back to the village, I started on the warpath with a number of young men. From the camp we went south to the Arkansas River. When we reached that river, it began to snow, and the snow fell six feet deep. We stopped in one place eleven days, till the snow got less deep. From there we went on to the sandhills by the North Canadian. One day as we were going along, we saw far off three Indians on foot. They were Kiowas. Probably they had been on the warpath and had lost their horses. We attacked and killed them. They did not fight. We killed them like women. Then, indeed, we divided the scalps, and made many of them. From there we started home, and found the tribe camped on the Solomon River. When we reached home there was great joy, and we danced the scalp dance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CURLY CHIEF--KIT-KE-HAHK'-I.]

"I sacrificed a scalp to _Ti-ra'-wa_. I felt that he had given me the victory over my enemies, and for this reason I wanted to give him something, I wanted to make an acknowledgment of his goodness to me.

He had taken pity on me and helped me. It was a sacrifice greater than the sacrifice of the buffalo meat. Not many men have made it, but once in a while you see some one who has been noticed by the Ruler. It is our aim, after we have been helped, to give thanks."

[Ill.u.s.tration: p.a.w.nEE DIRT LODGE.]

RELIGION.

I. BELIEFS.

It is generally believed that, among the Indians of North America, the priests and the shamans, "medicine men," or doctors, are the same.

This is not the case with the p.a.w.nees. Among them the priestly office was entirely distinct from that of the doctor, and had nothing in common with it. The priest was in a sense the medium of communication with _Ti-ra'-wa_; he prayed to the deity more efficaciously than could a common person, acted, in fact, as an intercessor; he knew the secrets of the sacred bundles, and when he asked anything good for the tribe, or for an individual, it was likely to be granted. His education and the power given him from above brought him into specially close relations with _Ti-ra'-wa_, who seemed to watch over him and to listen to him when he interceded for the tribe. He was an intermediary between _Ti-ra'-wa_ and the people, and held a relation to the p.a.w.nees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses to Jehovah and the Israelites.

The office of the "medicine man," shaman or doctor, had to do only with sickness or injury. He was the healer. Disease was caused by bad spirits, and it was the doctor's part to drive off these evil influences.

In the lodge or house of every p.a.w.nee of influence, hanging on the west side, and so opposite the door, is the sacred bundle neatly wrapped in buckskin, and black with smoke and age. What these bundles contain we do not know. Sometimes, from the ends, protrude bits of scalps, and the tips of pipe stems and slender sticks, but the whole contents of the bundle are known only to the priests and to its owner--perhaps, not always even to him. The sacred bundles are kept on the west side of the lodge, because, being thus furthest from the door, fewer people will pa.s.s by them than if they were hung in any other part of the lodge. Various superst.i.tions attach to these bundles. In the lodges where certain of them are kept it is forbidden to put a knife in the fire; in others, a knife may not be thrown; in others, it is not permitted to enter the lodge with the face painted; or again, a man cannot go in if he has feathers tied in his head.

On certain sacred occasions the bundles are opened, and their contents form part of the ceremonial of worship.

No one knows whence the bundles came. Many of them are very old; too old even to have a history. Their origin is lost in the haze of the long ago. They say, "The sacred bundles were given us long ago. No one knows when they came to us." Secret Pipe Chief, one of the very oldest men in the tribe, and its High Priest, said to me:

"All the sacred bundles are from the far off country in the southwest, from which we came long ago. They were handed down to the people before they started on their journey. Then they had never seen anything like iron, but they had discovered how to make the flint knives and arrow points. There was nothing that came to us through the whites. It all came to us through the power of _Ti-ra'-wa_. Through his power we were taught how to make bows and stone knives and arrow heads.

"It was through the Ruler of the universe that the sacred bundles were given to us. We look to them, because, through them and the buffalo and the corn, we worship _Ti-ra'-wa_. We all, even the chiefs, respect the sacred bundles. When a man goes on the warpath, and has led many scouts and brought the scalps, he has done it through the sacred bundles. There were many different ceremonies that they used to go through. The high priest performs these ceremonies.

"The high priestship was founded in this way: The black eagle spoke to a person, and said to him, 'I am one of those nearest to _Ti-ra'-wa_, and you must look to me to be helped; to the birds and the animals--look to me, the black eagle, to the white-headed eagle, to the otter and the buffalo.'

"The black eagle sent the buzzard as a messenger to this person, and he gave him the corn. The secrets of the high priestship and the other secrets were handed down at the same time. The buzzard, because he is bald, stands for the old men who have little hair. The white-headed eagle also represents the old men, those whose hair is white. These are the messengers through whom _Ti-ra'-wa_ sends his words to the people. The Wichitas also had these secrets, and so have the Rees."

The p.a.w.nees believe that they were created by _Ti-ra'-wa_, but that there had been people on the earth before them. They say, "The first men who lived on the earth were very large Indians. They were giants; very big and very strong. The animals that lived then were the same that we know now, and of the same size. These giants used to hunt the buffalo on foot. They were so swift and strong that a man could run down a buffalo, and kill it with a great stone, or a club, or even with his flint knife. Then, when he had killed it, if it was a big buffalo bull, he would tie it up, throw it over his back, and carry it into camp, just as a man to-day would carry in an antelope. When one killed a yearling, he would push its head up under his belt, and let its body swing by his side, just as we would carry a rabbit.

"These people did not believe in _Ti-ra'-wa_. When it would thunder and rain, they would shake their fists at the sky and call out bad words. In these days all people, wherever they live--all Indians, all white men, all Mexicans and all black men--when they smoke up, speak to _A-ti'-us Ti-ra'-wa_, and ask that he will give them the right kind of a mind, and that he will bless them, so that they may have plenty to eat, and may be successful in war, and may be made chiefs and head men. When we smoke toward the earth we say, 'Father of the dead, you see us.' This means that this is _Ti-ra'-wa's_ ground. It belongs to him, and we ask him that he will let us walk on it, and will let us be buried in it. We believe that after we are dead we will live again with _Ti-ra'-wa_ up in the sky. We fear nothing after death worse than we know now. All will live again with _Ti-ra'-wa_ and be happy. A thief, one who steals from others in the camp, one who is bad, dies, and that is the end of him. He goes into the ground, and does not live again. One reason why we believe that there is a life after death is that sometimes, when asleep, we dream and see these things. We see ourselves living with _Ti-ra'-wa_. Then, too, we often dream of our people whom we have known, and who have died. We dream of being dead ourselves, and of meeting these people and talking with them, and going to war with them.

"Now, these giants did not believe in any of these things. They did not pray to _Ti-ra'-wa_, and they thought that they were very strong, and that nothing could overcome them. They grew worse and worse. At last _Ti-ra'-wa_ got angry, and he made the water rise up level with the land, and all the ground became soft, and these great people sank down into the mud and were drowned. The great bones found on the prairie are the bones of these people, and we have been in deep canons, and have seen big bones under ground, which convinces us that these people did sink into the soft ground.

"After the destruction of the race of giants, _Ti-ra'-wa_ created a new race of men, small, like those of to-day. He made first a man and a woman. They lived on the earth and were good. To them was given the corn. From this man and this woman the p.a.w.nees sprung, and they have always cultivated the corn from the earliest times."

There can be no doubt as to the belief of the p.a.w.nees in a future life. The spirits of the dead live after their bodies have become dust. The stories of the Ghost Bride and the Ghost Wife, already given, are examples of this belief. Secret Pipe Chief told me of himself:

"I was dead once. Just as I died, I found my way leading to an Indian village. I entered it, and went straight to the lodge of my friends and my relations. I saw them, and when I saw them I knew them again. I even knew my old relations, whom I had never looked on when I was alive. I went into a lodge, but I was not offered a seat, and I thought that I was not welcome. I came out of the lodge, and went out of the village toward the west. Then I came back to life again. In the morning I had died, and I came to life in the afternoon. That must be the reason that I still live, and am getting old. I was not welcome yet. They did not receive me. From this I am convinced that there is a life after we are dead."

Sometimes ghosts appear to them, but more often they merely speak to them; only a voice is heard. They believe that the little whirlwinds often seen in summer are ghosts. The reason for this is that once a person shot at a whirlwind with his arrow. The arrow pa.s.sed through it, and it all disappeared and came to nothing. Then the man was convinced that it was a ghost, and that he had killed it.

The different bands of the p.a.w.nees had not all the same beliefs. Thus the Skidi band offered up the human sacrifice--a captive taken in war--to the morning star. This is thought to have been a propitiatory offering to avert the evil influences exerted by that planet. At the present day the Indians speak of the sacrifice as having been made to _Ti-ra'-wa_. None of the other tribes had this form of worship, and in this fact we have another indication that the separation of the Skidi from the p.a.w.nees had been a long one. The _Ka-wa-ra-kish_ band of the Pita-hau-erat, are said to have been "the only ones of the p.a.w.nees who did not worship _Ti-ra'-wa_. They worshiped toward the west."

Mention has been made of the _Nahu'rac_, or animals, which possess miraculous attributes given them by _Ti-ra'-wa_. The p.a.w.nees know of five places where these animals meet to hold council--five of these _Nahu'rac_ lodges. One of these is at _Pa-huk'_, on the south side of the Platte River, opposite the town of Fremont, in Nebraska. The word _Pa-huk'_ means "hill island." Another animal home is under an island in the Platte River, near the town of Central City. It is called by the p.a.w.nees _La-la-wa-koh-ti-to_, meaning "dark island." The third of these sacred places is on the Loup Fork, opposite the mouth of the Cedar River, and under a high, white cut bank. It is called _Ah-ka-wit-akol_, "white bank." Another is on the Solomon River, _Kitz-a-witz-uk_, "water on a bank;" it is called _Pa'howa_ sometimes.

This is a mound, shaped like a dirt lodge. At the top of the mound, in the middle, is a round hole, in which, down below, can be seen water.

At certain times, the people gather there, and throw into this hole their offerings to _Ti-ra'-wa_, blankets and robes, blue beads, tobacco, eagle feathers and moccasins. Sometimes, when they are gathered there, the water rises to the top of the hole, and flows out, running down the side of the mound into the river. Then the mothers take their little children and sprinkle the water over them, and pray to _Ti-ra'-wa_ to bless them. The water running out of the hole often carries with it the offerings, and the ground is covered with the old rotten things that have been thrown in. The fifth place is a hard, smooth, flinty rock, sticking up out of the ground. They call it _Pa-hur'_, "hill that points the way." In the side of the hill there is a great hole, where the _Nahu'rac_ hold councils. This hill is in Kansas, and can be seen from the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad.

It is known to the whites as Guide Rock.

II. CEREMONIES.

To describe satisfactorily any considerable proportion of the religious ceremonials of the p.a.w.nees, would require a more extended s.p.a.ce than is here at my command. Several of the special ceremonies, however, may be mentioned in general terms.

Like some other tribes of the plains Indians, the p.a.w.nees had a certain special worship at the time of the first thunder in the spring. This first thunder warned them that winter was at an end and that the time of the planting was drawing near.

Of this worship a Chau-i said to me: "We all believe in _Ti-ra'-wa_.

We know that there is a power above that moves the universe, and that he controls all things. In the old days when they had buffalo meat, they used to make a sacrifice at the time of the first thunder in the spring. The next day after it had thundered, all the people would go into the sacred lodge, where the sacred bundles were kept at that time. When they had all come together, the priest would open the bundles and take out the sacred things, among which were Indian tobacco and some little pieces of scalp tied to a stick. Through these sacred things we worshiped, and the sacrifices were made to the Ruler above. This seemed to be a help to us, and we used to live, increase and grow strong. Up north, when we worshiped at the time of the first thunder, we never had cyclones. Down here, now that this worship has been given up, we have them."

There is no doubt that the most important of the religious ceremonials of the p.a.w.nees were the burnt offering of the animal and of the scalp.

These two, though different, had yet the same meaning. In each the sacrifice was an offering to _Ti-ra'-wa_. Perhaps next in importance to these were the buffalo dance and the corn dance, which were special ceremonies to implore a blessing on the hunt and on the harvest.

The first animal killed on the hunt was sacrificed. It was necessary that this animal should be either a deer or a buffalo; the first one killed on the hunt of these two kinds. They were not permitted to kill any other sort of an animal, save only these two, until after the sacrifice had been made.

When this first animal had been killed, it was brought into the camp, and taken to the sacred lodge, and there the priests themselves went through the secret ceremonies. Then they divided the meat, and took a part of it to the southeast end of the village. There they built a fire of sticks, and placed the meat on it. As the fire burned the flesh, the whole tribe marched slowly and reverently by the fire, and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and rubbed it over their bodies and arms, and prayed, saying, "Now, you, _Ti-ra'-wa_, the Ruler, look at your children, and bless them; keep them and have mercy upon them, and care for them." If any could not understand, such as little children, their elders, who did understand--their relations--prayed for them.

The sick were carried out to the place, and prayed, and the smoke was rubbed over them. The young men would run races, starting from a certain place, and going around the village until they came to the place where the smoke of the sacrifice rose.

The sacrifice, by burning of the scalp, was a very elaborate performance, and occupied a whole day. The high priest faced the east and prayed, and sang twelve times. Descriptions of it given me in general terms indicate that this ceremony was extremely interesting.