Pawnee Hero Stories and Folk-Tales / With notes on the origin, customs and character of the Pawnee people

by George Bird Grinnell

The three tribes first named have always been together, and their Pawnee names, according to Major North, denoted the relative situations of the three villages. Thus Kit-ke-hahk´-i means “on a hill;” Chau-i, “in the middle;” Pita-hau-erat, “down the stream,” or east; and in the olden times these were the relative positions of the different villages when the three bands were camping together. The Kit-ke-hahk´-i village was always the westernmost of the three, the Chau-i were next to them, and the Pita-hau-erat were furthest east. After the incorporation of the Skidi with the Pawnees, the village of that tribe was always placed furthest to the west, and it was spoken of as the Upper Village, while the other bands were termed the Lower Village Tribes.

GOOD CHIEF—KIT-KE-HAHK´-I.

Of the three original bands, the Chau-i has always been first in importance, and the head chief has been [!-- original location of Good Chief illustration --] chosen from it. The Kit-ke-hahk´-i band in numbers, importance and intelligence appear to rank about with the Chau-i, while, on the other hand, the Pita-hau-erat are regarded as less intelligent, responsible and worthy than the other bands.

The Skidi are usually looked upon as more intelligent than the Pawnees, and also as fiercer in their nature, and as making better soldiers. The Skidi traditions, though such testimony, of course, is not of much value, speak rather contemptuously of the prowess of the other bands in war, and the superiority of the Skidi is grudgingly acknowledged by the others. This is contrary to the view held by Mr. J. B. Dunbar, who speaks of the Skidi as more intelligent than the other bands, but as not being so good as warriors.

Besides this main group of tribes, the members of the Pawnee family, as given by Mr. Dunbar, are the Arickaras, known also as the Arickarees, Ricarees or Rees, the Caddos, the Huecos or Wacos, the Keechies, the Tawaconies, and the Wichitas or Pawnee Picts. To these may be added with some confidence the Tonkaways and the Lipans. The Caddos, Huecos, Keechies and Tawaconies are regarded by the Pawnees as closely connected with the Wichitas. They had but one name, Kiri-ku´ruks, for all these tribes, and knew no distinction between them. There is no doubt that the Arickaras were recently—perhaps within a century—either a band of the Skidi tribe, or at least allied to them as closely as the Chau-i have always been to the Kit-ke-hahk´-i and the Pita-hau-erat. The relationship of the Tonkaways and the Lipans has only recently been discovered, and has come to light through the removal of the Pawnees from their home in Nebraska to their present reservation in the Indian Territory.

In a note appended to his article on the Pawnees, published in the Magazine of American History for November, 1880, Mr. Dunbar says, “A friend, who has had much experience with the Indians of the Southwest, informs me that he is inclined to believe that the Lipans of Mexico are of Pawnee stock. They have, in times past, exchanged frequent hospitalities with the Wichitas, or Pawnee Picts, and the two understand each other’s dialects readily. The name Lipans he explains as li’panis, that is, the Pawnees.” While this suggestion is very interesting, so far as it goes, it scarcely furnishes sufficient ground on which to base a genetic connection of the Lipans with the Pawnee family. I have recently secured additional and more satisfactory evidence of such a connection.

It is generally believed by the Pawnees, especially by those who are most intelligent, and have had most intercourse with the southern tribes, that the Lipans are allied to them, and that this relationship is traceable through the Wichitas and the Tonkaways. The evidence consists of (1) statements by the Wichitas and Tonkaways, (2) an alleged similarity of language and personal names, and (3) a similarity in the songs of the tribes. A Pawnee Indian, who has lived for seven seasons with the Wichitas, gave me the following story which he had gathered from that people. They say that long ago they did not know the Tonkaways, but that when the tribes met they found that they could understand each other’s speech. Their languages were not the same, but they were not more unlike than were the tongues spoken by the Skidi and the three other Pawnee bands long ago; in other words, they were dialects of the same language. After that meeting, the Tonkaways and the Wichitas lived together for a time. But the Tonkaways had bad ways. They would eat human flesh. When they could find a Wichita boy out away from the camp, they would capture him, and strangle and eat him. Sometimes they would kill a man of the Wichitas, if they could catch him away off on the prairie. Therefore the Wichitas drove the Tonkaways off south, and soon afterward moved up across the Arkansas River, and into southern Kansas. Since then the Wichitas and the Tonkaways have never lived together. A Tonkaway chief named Charlie told Ralph J. Weeks, an educated Pawnee, “I have heard that my people are Pawnees, but that we separated long ago.” I am informed that the personal names of the Tonkaways are the same as those of the Pawnees, and are readily comprehended by the latter. Ralph Weeks, while in a Tonkaway lodge, heard a man call out to a girl, addressing her as Tsi-sah-ru-rah-ka´-ri-ku, which means “Woman Chief’s House.” Ralph inquired about this name, and found that it was the same in sound as Pawnee, and had the same meaning. The Tonkaways say that some of the Pawnee words are the same as those used by their relations to the south, the Lipans and others. The songs of the Tonkaways are the same as those of the Pawnees, and the latter at once recognize them. The old songs of the Lipans are the same as those of the Pawnees, according to both Pawnee and Tonkaway testimony. Finally, the Tonkaways and Lipans claim close relationship. They speak different dialects of the same language.

The Pawnees, however, say that they never knew of the existence of the Tonkaways until they came down into the Indian Territory, and, of course, never met them until after that time. Neither did they know the Caddos. As the Pawnees knew nothing of the Caddos and Tonkaways, so the Wichitas knew nothing of the Arickaras until recently, and were greatly surprised to learn that far to the north there was another tribe which spoke their language.