Sha-to-Ko (Blue Hawk). A Pawnee.
The fact of a sacrifice so important as that of a girl on the verge of womanhood being made to the god believed to have power over all matters relating to the growth of corn and other vegetable produce, proves that the Pawnees cultivated the earth to a greater extent than other tribes. Their neighbours, the Dakotas, were more exclusively a hunting race, and their human sacrifices, as far as has been ascertained by events that have happened within the past century, were usually made for the purpose of propitiation in the more solemn forms of Sun worship, or of appeasing the anger of evil spirits or demons when manifested by storms of lightning and thunder.
My host told me that during the time he had lived amongst the Pawnees he had not seen anything in their observances which led him to suppose that they had any kind of belief in a future state beyond this world, or in any absolutely over-ruling Power. The few ceremonies performed by them were apparently propitiations of the various supernatural Manitos who, they considered, had influence over them either individually or as a tribe. One of their most frequent practices consisted of offering incense to them in the form of tobacco smoke, and they invariably presented it in the same manner by throwing the first whiff upwards towards the sky, the next downwards to the ground and then to the right and left. He had also observed that when this act was finished, each Indian seemed to mutter some brief ejaculation or prayer.
With respect to their superstitions he thought that they were practically spiritualists, and believed in the presence of unknown and unseen influences below, above or around them, having each in their own separate degree powers of good or evil. He mentioned an event which had happened within his personal observation.
A Pawnee during a violent storm was injured by a flash of lightning. The tribe were convinced that this misfortune had been inflicted upon him as a direct punishment for some wrong deed he had committed, or that he had in some way, by his own conduct incurred the displeasure of the god of Lightning. As a consequence of this belief, he was avoided, and compelled to live apart, as a man placed under a curse or malignant influence.
These Pawnees had the reputation of being cruel to their prisoners, and in that respect had the same usages as the Iroquois who tortured the captives and then burnt them at the stake.[39] All North American tribes appear to have similar habits when their savage natures are aroused by bloodshed and war, but it is also acknowledged by those who have had an intimate knowledge of them, that under other and milder conditions, they possess qualities of an affectionate nature, which are shown in their domestic lives. An event occurred not far from the settlement which exemplified their attachment to their children.
The only child of a Pawnee and his wife died and was buried in a grave dug in the open prairie near a spot where a small band of Indians had temporarily erected their tents. In the grave with the child were placed all the things which had belonged to her, including her mocassin shoes, her plate and cup and her trinkets. Her father had in his possession a good set of sleigh bells, said to be worth seventeen dollars which he had intended to sell to one of the white men in the neighbourhood, but after the death of his daughter he said that he was happy because no one had yet bought his bells, for he was consequently able to give them to her, and they were put by the child’s side and buried. The father and mother then built round the grave a wooden fence to keep the wolves away, as the Pawnees were going to move their tents to a distant part of the country. This fence was shortly afterwards destroyed by a prairie fire, and the place of the grave is not now known.
These fires are becoming less frequent and, when they occur, are attributable to carelessness. I happened to see one of them sweeping over the plains near the river Missouri, my position at the time being at right angles to the line of its direction. A high wind was blowing from the South-west and the tall grass was bent over in such a manner that the flames instead of going with the wind towards the North-east, caught the tops of the grass and consequently travelled steadily to windward in the teeth of the gale. The smoke rolled away to leeward in dense clouds and the flames leapt upwards on tongues of fire to heights of twenty or thirty feet. The movement forward was like that of the rapidly advancing crest of a breaking wave. I estimated the length of the front of the fire to be nearly two miles.
