Pawnee people - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Pawnee are a Native American Plains Indians tribe.^[1] They lived mainly in what is now Nebraska and Kansas. Unlike other tribes of the Great Plains, they were semi-nomadic people.^[1] They were hunters and farmers. The Pawnee farmed for most of the year and lived in earth lodges.^[2] During the buffalo hunting season, they lived in tepees so they could follow the herds.^[2] In the early 1800s their main village was on the south side of the Platte River (Nebraska). They raised crops including beans, corn, pumpkins, squashes and sunflowers.^[2] The powerful Pawnee tribe had four individual bands. These were the Chaui (Grand), the Kitkehaki (Republican Pawnees), Pitahauerat (Tapage Pawnees) and the Skidi (Loup or Wolf Pawnees).^[3] They were a fierce people who used war paint and tattoos to intimidate their enemies.^[2] The Pawnee took scalps in battle. Pawnee war parties often rode out on scalping missions against other tribes.^[4] The Pawnee also practiced human sacrifice.^[5] Most often this took the form of ritually killing a young captive girl in a five-day ceremony.^[5] She was sacrificed to the Morning Star. The last known ritual killing was of a girl in the mid-18th century.^[3] The Pawnee were the largest tribe to have lived in Nebraska.^[6] They were one of the earliest tribes to come to the area.^[6] Estimates are that there were between 10,000 and 12,000 Pawnee in Nebraska by 1800.^[6] They had little to fear from their enemies because they were a large tribe.^[6] But smallpox and other diseases aswell as warfare with the Sioux reduced their numbers significantly in the early 1800s.^[6] They were finally removed to Oklahoma in the 1870s.^[4]

• The Pawnee Morning Star Ceremony
• The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma