They climb up his seaward flanks;
See how they shift and change;
Watch them there to the south;
How the one makes beautiful the other;
How they mount his southern slopes,
Hiding him from the stormy sea,
Each lending beauty to the other.
No doubt there were and are many historical or traditional songs among the natives; but I should have little hope of deriving from them much information of a really historical character. Their references to occurrences are very vague, and rather in the form of suggestion than narration. The auditors are supposed to be familiar with the story, and a single name or prominent word is enough to recall it to their minds.
I may illustrate this by a short Pawnee song sent me by Mr. Dunbar, whose intimate acquaintance with the language and customs of that tribe lends entire authority to all he writes about them.
About 1820 the Pawnees captured a young girl from their enemies the Paducas, and according to custom, prepared to burn her alive. On the appointed day she was fastened to the stake, and the village gathered around in order to commence the tortures which were to precede her death. At that moment a young Pawnee brave, by name Pitale-Sharu, whose heart had been touched with pity and perhaps with love, dashed madly into the ring with two fleet horses. In a moment with his ready knife he had slit the thongs which fastened the girl to the stake, had thrown her on one horse, himself on the other, and was speeding away on the prairie toward her father’s village. The Pawnees were literally stricken dumb. They retired silently to their cabins, and when, three days later, Pitale-Sharu returned to the village, no man challenged his action. All regarded it as an act of divine inspiration, even to inquire about which would be sacrilege. This act is remembered to this day in the tribe, and commemorated in the following song: