History of the Kansas Indians

Native American History in Kansas - Page 3

The Pawnee Nation was a confederacy of tribes belonging to the Caddoan family, and called themselves Chahiksichahiks, "men of men." As the Caddoan tribes moved northeast, the Pawnee separated from the main body somewhere near the Platte River in Nebraska, where their traditions say they acquired a territory by conquest, and where they were subsequently found by the Siouan tribes.

There is some question with regard to the origin of the name "Pawnee." The word Pani, which has become synonymous with Pawnee, means "slave." As it was from this tribe that the Algonquian tribes about the great lakes obtained their slaves, some writers maintain that the word Pawnee is equivalent to the word slave, and that the tribal name resulted from the fact that so many members of it were subjected to a state of bondage.

Pawnee lodge home.

The tribal organization of the Pawnee was based on the village communities, which represented subdivisions of the tribe. Each village had its name, its hereditary chiefs, a shrine, priests, etc. The dominating power in their religion was Tirawa (father), whose messengers were the winds, thunder, lightning and rain. Pawnee lodges were of two types -- the common form of skins stretched over a framework of poles, and the earth lodge. The latter was circular in form, from 30 to 60 feet in diameter, partly under ground, and its construction was usually accompanied with elaborate religious ceremonies. Among the men, the only essential articles of wearing apparel were the breechcloth and moccasins, though these were supplemented by a robe and leggings in cold weather or on state occasions. After marriage a man went to live with his wife's family, though polygamy was not uncommon.

Juan de Oñate, in his account of his expedition in 1601, says the Escansaques and Quivirans were hereditary enemies, and Professor Dunbar of the Kansas Historical Society, demonstrated almost to an absolute certainty that the Quivirans mentioned by Oñate were the Pawnee, who were also the inhabitants of the ancient Indian province of Harahey. The first Pawnee to come in contact with the white man was the one whom the Spaniards of Coronado's Expedition called "the Turk." Soon after the expedition of Oñate the Spanish settlers of New Mexico became acquainted with Pawnee through their raids into the white settlements for horses, and for two centuries the Spaniards tried to establish peaceful relations with the tribe, but with only partial success. Consequently the Pawnee villages in the 17th and 18th centuries were so remote from the white settlements that they escaped the influences generally so fatal to the aborigines.

In 1702, the estimated Pawnee population was about 2,000 families. When Louisiana was purchased from France by the United States a century later the Pawnee country was south of the Niobrara River in Nebraska, extending southward into Kansas. On the west, were the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, on the east were the Omaha, and south were the Otoe and Kanza. Soon after the Louisiana Purchase, the Pawnee came in contact with white traders from St. Louis. In September, 1806, at the Pawnee village in what is now Republic County, Kansas, Lieutenant Pike lowered the Spanish flag and raised the flag of the United States. In 1838 the number of Pawnee was estimated at 10,000, but in 1849 the tribe was reduced to about 4,500 by a cholera epidemic. Five years before this; however, they ceded to the United States, their lands south of the Platte River and were removed from Kansas. Between the years 1873 and 1875, what remained of the tribe were settled upon a reservation in the Indian Territory. At that time there were about 1,000, representing four tribes of what was once the great Pawnee Confederacy.

A Comanche camp in 1873.

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The Comanche or Padouca, who inhabited western Kansas in the early part of the 18th century, were an offshoot of the Shoshone of Wyoming, as shown by their language and traditions. The Siouan name was Padouca, by which they were called in the accounts of the early French explorers, notably Bourgmont, who visited the tribe in 1724. As late as 1805, the North Platte River was known as the Padouca Fork. At that time, the Comanche roamed over the country about the headwaters of the Arkansas, Red, Trinity and Brazos Rivers in Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. According to a Kiowa tradition, when that tribe moved southward from the country about the Black Hills, the Arkansas River formed the northern boundary of the Comanche country. The Handbook of the Bureau of American Ethnology said: "It must be remembered that from 500 to 800 miles was an ordinary range for a prairie tribe, and that the Comanche were equally at home on the Platte and in the Bolson de Mapimi of Chihuahua."

For nearly two centuries the Comanche were at war with the Spaniards of the southwest and made frequent raids as far south as Durango. They were generally friendly with the Americans, but did not like the Texans. The Comanche was probably never a large tribe, as they did not settle down in villages, but lived as nomadic buffalo hunters, following the herds as they grazed from place to place. They were fine horsemen, the best riders on the plains, full of courage, had a high sense of honor, and considered themselves superior to the tribes with which they associated. In 1867 they were given a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma, but they did not go to it until after the outbreak of the plains tribes in 1874-75.

The Cheyenne (people of strange language) belonged to the Algonquian group. They are first mentioned in history by the name of "Chaa," some of them visiting La Salle's Fort on the Illinois River to invite the French to their country where beaver and other fur-bearing animals were plentiful. At that time, they inhabited the region bounded by the Mississippi, Minnesota and upper Red Rivers. According to a Sioux tradition, the Cheyenne occupied the upper Mississippi country before the Sioux. When the latter appeared in that locality there was some friction between the two tribes, which resulted in the Cheyenne crossing the Missouri River and locating about the Black Hills, where they were found by Lewis and Clark in 1804.

Cheyenne Warriors by Edward S. Curtis

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From there they drifted westward and southward, first occupying the region about the headwaters of the Platte and next along the Arkansas River in the vicinity of Bent's Fort. A portion of the tribe remained on the Platte and the Yellowstone and became known as the northern Cheyenne.

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