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

by George Bird Grinnell

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. It was rather unusual, but was performed once in 1877.

The sacrifice of the captive has not been practiced by the Skidi for a long time, perhaps forty or fifty years. Bear Chief told me that he had witnessed it six times; Eagle Chief, who is, perhaps, between fifty and sixty years old, says he has seen it once. The old Skidi described the ceremony as follows:

“The Skidi alone of the Pawnees sacrificed human beings to Ti-ra´-wa. When they had returned home from war successful, bringing captives with them, they selected one of these for the sacrifice. The others were adopted into the tribe, but this one, who must be young and stout, one who would fatten easily, was kept apart, eating by himself, fed on the best of food and treated with the greatest kindness. No hint of the fate in store for him was given until the day of the sacrifice. For four nights before that day the people danced; and for four days they feasted. Each day after they had got through feasting, the dishes were taken to their especial place. Each woman, after she got through eating, rose, and said to the prisoner, ‘I have finished eating, and I hope that I may be blessed from Ti-ra´-wa; that he may take pity on me; that when I put my seed in the ground they may grow, and that I may have plenty of everything.’

“At the end of the four days two old men went, one to each end of the village, and called aloud, directing every male person in the village to make a bow and an arrow, and to be ready for the sacrifice. For every male child that had been born a bow and an arrow was made; for the little boys small bows that they could bend and small arrows. The arrows must be feathered with the feathers of the eagle, or of some bird of prey, a hawk, an owl or an eagle. They must not cut the feathers nor burn them to make them low.

“The next day, before daybreak, every one was ready. All of the warriors, who had led parties on the warpath, took from their sacred bundles their collars, made from the feathers of the bird they wore,[12] and put them on their backs and tied them about their necks. They held their pipes in their left hands, to signify that they were warriors. Every male carried his bow and arrow. Every woman had a lance or a stick. Just before daylight they all went out to the west end of the village, and stood there looking for the prisoner to be brought. Here two stout posts had been set up, one of ash and the other of hackberry, and between these had been tied four cross-poles, the three lower ones to aid in climbing up to the highest of the four.

[12] The Purple Martin, Progne subis.

“As day broke, the people, looking back toward the village, could see the captive being led toward them, bound hand and foot. Behind him, as he was led along, followed a warrior carrying the heart and tongue of a buffalo; after him came another, carrying a blazing stick, then one with a bow and arrow, and last a warrior with the stuffed skin of an owl.

“They led the naked captive to the posts, and lifting him up, tied first the left hand and then the right to the top cross-pole, and afterward tied the feet below. Every one stood there silent, looking, waiting; the men holding their weapons and the women their sticks and lances. On the ground under the sacrifice was laid the wood for a great fire, which was now lighted. Then the man with the blazing stick stepped forward, but before he reached the captive, the warrior with the bow and arrow, he who had taken the captive, ran up close to the victim and shot him through from side to side, beneath the arms, with the sacred arrow, whose point was of flint, such as they used in the olden time. After the blood had run down upon the fire below, the warrior who carried the buffalo tongue and the heart, placed them on the fire beneath the body. When this had been done the man who carried the owl ran up, and seized the burning stick and burned the body, once under each arm, and once in each groin, in all four times. Then, at a given signal, the males all ran up, and shot their arrows into the body. If any male children were not large enough to shoot, some one shot for them. There were so many arrows that the body was stuck full of them; it bristled with them.

“A man chosen for this purpose now climbed up, and pulled out all the arrows from the body, except the one which was first shot through the side of the sacrifice, and placed them together in a pile on the ground, where they were left. After pulling out the arrows, this man took his knife and cut open the breast of the captive, and putting his hand in the opening, took out a handful of blood, and smeared it over his face, and then jumped to the ground, and ran away as fast as he could. Each of the four men, after he had done his part, ran away very fast, and went down to the river and washed himself. When this had been done the women came with their sticks and spears and struck the body and counted coup on it. Even the little children struck it. After they had done this, they put their sticks together on the ground in a pile, and left them there. By this time the fire was burning up high and scorching the body, and it was kept up until the whole body was consumed. And while the smoke of the blood and the buffalo meat, and of the burning body, ascended to the sky, all the people prayed to Ti-ra´-wa, and walked by the fire and grasped handfuls of the smoke, and passed it over their bodies and over those of their children, and prayed Ti-ra´-wa to take pity on them, and to give them health, and success in war, and plenteous crops. The man who had killed the captive fasted and mourned for four days, and asked Ti-ra´-wa to take pity on him, for he knew that he had taken the life of a human being.

“This sacrifice always seemed acceptable to Ti-ra´-wa, and when the Skidi made it they always seemed to have good fortune in war, and good crops, and they were always well.