The Pawnee had very elaborate ceremonies and traditions connected with the earth-lodge. The earlier star cult is recognized in the signification attached to the four central posts. Each stood for a star—the Morning Star, and the Evening Star, symbols of the male and female cosmic forces, and the North and South stars.
In the rituals of the Pawnee the earth-lodge is made typical of man’s abode on the earth; the floor is the plain, the wall the horizon, the dome the arching sky, the central opening the zenith, the dwelling-place of Tirawa, the invisible power which gives life to all creatures.
In the poetic thought of the Pawnee the earth was regarded as Mother and was so called because from the earth’s bounty mankind is fed. To their imagination the form of the earth-lodge suggests the figure of speech by which these human dwellings symbolised the breasts of Mother Earth; for here man is nourished and nurtured, he is fed and sheltered and blessed with tenderness of life. Here he knows love and warmth and gentleness.
Herewith is given a metrical translation of an ancient Pawnee ritualistic hymn. This hymn is extracted from the ritual of a ceremonial of great age in the Pawnee nation, and there were similar ceremonials among all the tribes and nations of the Plains area. The full ritual from which this is taken is published in the Twenty-second Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part 2.
Having given the description of the structure of the earth-lodge, the allusions in the following hymn will be readily understood:
HYMN TO THE SUN
I
Now behold: hither comes the ray of our father Sun; it cometh over all the land, passeth in the lodge, us to touch, and give us strength.
II
Now behold: where alights the ray of our father Sun; it touches lightly on the rim, the place above the fire, whence the smoke ascends on high.