717. Black Buffalo.
718. Long Knife.
2. KEECHIES.
The Keechies, of whom there are now only a small remnant of about 90 in the Indian Territory, affiliated with the Wichitas, Wacos, and Tawacanies; were originally from Texas, and are supposed to be the Quitzies of the Spanish authorities of 1780. Even at that time they were a small tribe, numbering about 100 warriors. After the admission of Texas, were placed on a State reservation, where they remained undisturbed until 1859, when their presence became so distasteful to the settlers that it became necessary to remove them. Land was leased from the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and the Keechies settled on it, building their villages of grass houses along the Canadian River. The breaking out of the civil war set them back, just as they were beginning to prosper, compelling another remove for safety. In 1867 they were restored to their lands again, and since then have progressed rapidly in civilized pursuits. Like the Wichitas and Wacos, they are of the same stock as the Pawnees.
List of illustrations.
411. Knee-war-war, (Front.)
412. Knee-war-war, (Profile.)
3. PAWNEES.
There is but little definite knowledge of the early history of the Pawnees, although they are among the longest known to the whites west of the Mississippi. Marquette notes them in his map, 1673, as divided into various bands. They are supposed to be the Panimaha of La Salle's voyage in 1688. At the time of Lewis and Clarke's visit, in 1803, their principal village was on the south side of the Platte. Pike, in 1806, estimated the population of three of their villages at 6,233, with nearly 2,000 warriors, engaged in fierce combats with neighboring tribes. In 1820, three of the four bands into which they have been for a long time divided resided on the banks of the Platte and its tributaries, with a reservation on Loup Fork, on the ninety-eighth meridian. Were then estimated at about 10,000 souls, living in earth-covered lodges, and much devoted to the cultivation of the soil, but engaging regularly every season in a grand buffalo-hunt. The Delawares, in 1823, burnt the Great Pawnee village on the Republican, and these Pawnees, becoming much reduced in numbers by small-pox soon after, sold all their lands south of the Platte, and removed to the reservation on Lou Fork. The means were provided, and many exertions made to place them on the high road to prosperity; but their inveterate foe, the Sioux, harassed them continually; drove them repeatedly off their reservation, and despoiled their villages. This warfare and disease soon reduced them to half their former number. In 1861, they raised a company of scouts for service against the Sioux, and a much larger force under the volunteer organization, incurring in consequence an increased hostility from their enemies, who harassed them so continuously, that in 1874 the chiefs in general council determined upon removing to a new reservation in the Indian Territory, lying between the forks of the Arkansas and Cimarron, east of the ninety-seventh meridian. Their removal was almost entirely effected during the winter of 1874-'75.
The Pawnees now number in all 2,026, and yet retain the subdivision into bands, as follows: The Skeedee (Pawnee Mahas, or Loups), Kit-ka-hoct, or Republican Pawnees, Petahoweret, and the Chowee or Grand Pawnees. There are also living on the Washita, a small band of affiliated Wacos and Wichitas, sometimes called Pawnee Picts, who are undoubtedly an offshoot of the Grand Pawnees. They are under the care of the Friends; have well-organized day and industrial schools, and are well supplied with implements and means to carry forward a systematic cultivation of the soil.