courage was not displayed in the same way as that of the white man.
They thought it folly to expose themselves unnecessarily. An enemy was
to be surprised, and killed, while asleep if possible, or shot
through by an arrow from behind. To meet him in what we call fair
fight, when there was a chance to kill him from an ambush, would have
seemed an insane or desperate proceeding. And yet, as has been shown
by some of the stories already narrated, they often faced death with a
calmness and an indifference which indicated the highest physical
courage.
It has been very well said that the purpose of the Indian in his
warfare was to inflict the greatest amount of injury on his enemy with
the least possible risk to himself.
In the old time wars, the participants exercised the greatest prudence
and caution. They took no risks, where risks could be avoided. It was
more glorious for a war party to kill a single enemy without receiving
a wound, than to kill a dozen, if thereby they lost a man. The
warrior, who led out a war party, and brought it back without loss,
received credit. His skill as a leader was praised, and his influence
grew. A leader, who lost men, lost also prestige; the chiefs withdrew
their confidence from him, the young men might decline after that to
join his party.
When the Pawnees came into the northern country they found it
occupied by the Poncas, the Omahas and the Otoes. According to their
custom, they attacked these tribes, and, after a resistance more or
less prolonged, conquered them. The Poncas appear to have made the
most stubborn fight against the invaders, and it is related that they
made an alliance with the Sioux against their common enemy. From time
to time there would be a cessation of hostilities, and peace would be
made, but this never endured long.
There still exists among the Pawnees a triumph song, composed after a
treacherous attack on the Pawnees by the Poncas during a time of
peace. Mr. Dunbar's remarks on this song are so interesting that I
quote them in full. He says, "The Pawnee has a song, constituting the
finest satirical production in the language, relating to an attempt
that the Poncas are said to have once made to recover their
independence. Their warriors in a body, so the account states, made a
pretended visit of peace to the village of Chau-i, at that time the
head band of the Pawnees. After lulling to rest, as they supposed, the
suspicions of the Chau-i, according to a preconcerted plan, they made
an attack on them, but were signally discomfited. In commemoration of
the victory then achieved, the Pawnees composed this song, and the
presumption is that such a remarkable production would not have
originated and maintained its position permanently in their minds
without a good historic basis." This is the song:
_A, Li-hit! Ku´s-ke-har-u, Kür-ü-u-ras,_
Aha, you Ponca! It was (pretended) peace. Did you find
_id-i, tüs-ku-ra-wüsk-u? Laü-i-lük-u-ru-tüs._
What you were laughing at me about? You meant fight.
"The keen satire of the interrogation is exquisite. It conceives of
the Poncas as quietly laughing in their sleeves, during their
ostensibly amicable visit, in anticipation of the summary retribution
that they expected to inflict upon their oppressors."
At last the Poncas, Omahas and Otoes were effectively subjugated, and
were permitted to live on the borders of the Pawnee territory, and
under the quasi-protection of that tribe.
In the old days before the coming of the whites the Pawnees had no
enemies near at hand. They had conquered all surrounding nations, and
claimed and held the country from the Missouri River to the Rocky
Mountains, and from the Niobrara, south to the Arkansas River or to
the Canadian. Then, when they wished to go to war, they were forced to
journey either to the Rocky Mountains to fight the Utes, or up the
Missouri to attack the Crows, or down into Mexico to plunder the
Spaniards, or into Texas to steal horses from the Comanches, the
Wichitas and other southern tribes. Then the war parties were great
bodies--sometimes one thousand men--and all on foot. Afterward, as
settlements approached them and other tribes were driven into their
country, and the different Pawnee bands were crowded together, their
campaigns diminished in importance, the war parties became smaller and
smaller, until at last only half a dozen men would start out, and
sometimes a single individual would go off by himself to steal horses.
The Pawnees were true Ishmaelites. They had no friends upon the
prairies save those whom they had conquered and held by fear. Foes
swarmed about them. To the north were the different bands of the
Dakotas and the Crows; to the west the Utes, with the Arapahoes, the
Kiowas and the Cheyennes; and to the south the Comanches, Cheyennes,
Kiowas, Kansas, Osages, and their relations the Wichitas. With these
last they were long at war; for the Pawnees and Wichitas had forgotten
each other's existence, or rather each tribe was wholly ignorant as
to what had become of the other. Only a tradition of the old
relationship still remained. The kinship was rediscovered within the
last thirty years, when some Kaws came north on a visit to the Pawnee
village, and brought with them a Wichita, who had been visiting at the
Kaw agency. The Pawnees found that this man spoke a language nearly
like their own, and at length discovered that the Wichitas were a part
of their own people. Attempts were made to establish a peace, and to
renew their old friendly relations, but the fact that the Wichitas
were so closely allied to the Comanches, Kiowas and Cheyennes made it
very difficult for the tribes to come together on a friendly footing.
Hostilities still continued therefore, nor was a lasting peace made
until the visit of _Wi-ti-ti le-shar´-uspi_, already described.
As a result of this well nigh universal hostility, the Pawnees were
constantly being attacked, and were constantly losing men, women and
children. Mr. Dunbar, who has taken pains to collect some facts
bearing on this point, says:
"Probably, not a year in this century has been without losses from
this source (warfare), though only occasionally have they been marked
with considerable disasters. In 1832 the Skidi band suffered a severe
defeat on the Arkansas from the Comanches. In 1847 a Dakota war party,
numbering over seven hundred, attacked a village occupied by two
hundred and sixteen Pawnees, and succeeded in killing eighty-three. In
1854 a party of one hundred and thirteen were cut off by an
overwhelming body of Cheyennes and Kiowas, and killed almost to a man.
In 1873 a hunting party of about four hundred, two hundred and
thirteen of whom were men, on the Republican, while in the act of
killing a herd of buffalo, were attacked by nearly six hundred Dakota
warriors, and eighty-six were killed. But the usual policy of their
enemies has been to cut off individual or small scattered parties,
while engaged in the chase or in tilling isolated corn patches. Losses
of this kind, trifling when taken singly, have in the aggregate borne
heavily on the tribe. It would seem that such losses, annually
recurring, should have taught them to be more on their guard. But let
it be remembered that the struggle has not been in one direction
against one enemy. The Dakotas, Crows, Kiowas, Cheyennes, Arapahoes,
Comanches, Osages and Kansas have faithfully aided each other, though
undesignedly in the main, in this crusade of extermination against the
Pawnee. It has been in the most emphatic sense, a struggle of the one
against the many. With the possible exception of the Dakotas, there is
much reason to believe that the animosity of these tribes has been
exacerbated by the galling tradition of disastrous defeats which
Pawnee prowess had inflicted upon themselves in past generations. To
them the last seventy years have been a carnival of revenge."
Mr. Dunbar regards the constant warfare against their many enemies as
one principal cause of the rapid diminution in numbers of the Pawnees,
and, no doubt, it was a cause; but a far more important one was the
sapping of the tribe's vitality by contact with the whites. Their
villages lay almost directly in the path of trans-continental
emigration, and it was the introduction of spirits and the special
diseases contracted from the whites which weakened the tribe, and made
the tough and sinewy Pawnee a ready prey to sickness and death.
Although so ferocious to people of their own color, the Pawnees have
ever been at peace with the whites. Bad men among them have, no doubt,
sometimes stolen horses, but the tribe has never carried on an
organized war against the Government. While they have often been
provoked by wanton outrages inflicted on them, yet they have always
borne themselves peaceably and mildly, and sought redress by legal or
persuasive, rather than by hostile measures.
There is one instance on record which, while it shows their ferocity,
exemplifies also their natural justice, and deserves to be repeated.
This is the story of the Rawhide.
In the year 1852, among a small party of emigrants, who were crossing
the plains on their way to California, was a man who had frequently
asserted that he would kill the first Indian he saw. While the train
was camped on a small creek flowing into the Elkhorn, a young squaw
was seen, who belonged to the neighboring Pita-hau-erat village. Some
accounts say that she came to the camp to beg, others, that she was
going to the stream for a bucket of water. At all events, she was seen
by the emigrants, who bantered the young man to carry out his boast
that he would kill the first Indian he saw. He shot and killed the
woman. The train moved on during the night. On the following day the
tribe learned of this wanton butchery. They pursued the train, and
surrounding it, demanded the murderer. He was at once given up, and a
council was held, at which his fate was decided. The train was
ordered back to the scene of the murder, and there, in the presence
of his horrified companions, the Pawnees proceeded to flay the
murderer alive. After this had been done, the emigrants were permitted
to proceed on their journey. The stream on whose banks this act of
grim justice took place is still known as Rawhide Creek.
Not only have the Pawnees never been at war with the whites, but, for
the past twenty-five years, they have been their allies in every
serious Indian war which has taken place east of the Rocky Mountains.
The Pawnee was taught to deal in ambuscades and surprises, yet he
could fight in the open, too, if necessity demanded. Sometimes they
had pitched battles with their foes, but their weapons were very
primitive, and such combats were--in view of the numbers engaged on
either side--comparatively bloodless. Between the years 1860 and 1870
such battles frequently took place near the Pawnee village, when the
Sioux, who were far more numerous than the Pawnees, would come down
from the north to try to destroy the village. Many a time I have heard
from the lips of grizzled warriors the stories of these battles.
Sometimes the enemy would come down in small parties, and steal
horses, or kill squaws who were working in the corn patches, but at
other times large bodies of warriors would approach the village
without any attempt at concealment.
About sunrise the Sioux would ride up over the hills in a line
fronting toward the village. They appeared mounted on their best
ponies, clad in their most elaborate war costume, and wearing long war
bonnets of the feathers of the war eagle, which almost swept the
ground as their horses curveted along to the music of the monotonous
but thrilling war chant. At the instant of their appearance the Pawnee
village would begin to stir like a disturbed ant hill. The shouts of
command by the men, the piercing calls from women, the alarmed and
excited shrieks of the children, the neighing and heavy hoof-beats of
the horses, the barking and howling of the dogs, as they were kicked
out of the way, made a very Babel of sounds. The men snatched their
arms, and springing on their horses rode out on to the plain to meet
the enemy, while the women and children, after the horses had been
secured, mounted to the tops of the dirt lodges to watch the fight.
The Sioux, when they had come into full view, stopped, and sat there
on their horses, proud of their brave attire, and courting
admiration. The Pawnees, too, if time permitted, would don their
finest war dresses, though often they fought naked, and elaborately
paint themselves and their horses. As the Pawnees rode toward their
enemy, the Sioux slowly advanced toward them, both with extended
front. Each party chanted its songs of war, and uttered yells of
defiance. While they were still six or seven hundred yards apart they
halted, and stood facing each other. After a short wait, a warrior
from one side or the other rode out before the line and addressed his
party. He opened his speech with some remarks derogatory to the foe,
and in praise of his own people. From these generalities, he passed to
a consideration of his own excellent qualities, told of what he had
done in the past, and what he now intended doing, and when he had
finished speaking, he bent low over his horse's neck, and rode
furiously toward one end of the enemy's line. When he had come within
easy bowshot, he usually turned his horse's head, and rode as hard as
he could down along the line, leaning down, half hidden by his horse,
and discharging arrow after arrow at the enemy. They also shot at him,
as he flew by, and as he rode along, those whom he had passed dashed
out in pursuit, until the whole party were riding after him as hard
as they could go. If he passed along the line without injury, he
turned his horse toward his own party, and rode back, his pursuers
following him but a short distance. If, however, he was wounded by the
arrows shot at him, and fell from his horse, or if his horse was hit
and disabled, or if, on account of the greater speed of their ponies,
it seemed likely that the enemy would overtake him, the whole body of
his tribe made a headlong charge to rescue and bring him off. The
enemy were as eager to take his scalp as his own people were to save
it, and the opposing warriors came together in a hot melee.
There was little twanging of bow strings, and not much thrusting of
lances; for the most part the fighting was at quarters too close for
this, and the combatants pounded at each other's heads with hatchets,
war clubs, whip handles, bows and _coup_ sticks. Bruises were given
and received, sometimes a few men were gashed with hatchets and
lances, and occasionally a man was killed. If the man about whom the
struggle was taking place was scalped, his party at once drew off,
leaving his body, which had now ceased to have any interest for them,
in the hands of the enemy. If, however, he escaped scalping, his
friends and foes soon separated and withdrew to their former
positions. Then, after a breathing spell, a man of the other party
rode forward, and made his speech, and the charge and general attack
might be repeated.
Occasionally a very daring or desperate man, instead of riding down
the opposing line, would charge through it, and as he reached it would
let fly an arrow at some particular man, and count _coup_ on, and
scalp him as he dashed by. He would at once be surrounded by foes, who
did their best to kill him, while his own tribesmen would charge upon
them, and for a short time the struggle would be very fierce. A brave
man, killed and scalped, was mutilated in all conceivable ways by the
enemy, and was often cut up into small pieces.
In this way the battle might go on for the greater part of a day with
varying fortunes, but without the loss on either side of more than a
man or two, until at last one party or the other would become
discouraged, and would break and run.
The Sioux in their attacks on the Pawnee village were never the
victors. They were always defeated and driven back, and often, in the
pursuit, two or three times as many men were killed as in the actual
battle. It was but natural that the Pawnees should have been
successful in this defense of their village, for in such fights they
felt that they must conquer. Defeat to them there meant the loss of
all that they possessed, the slaughter of their women and children,
and the destruction of their village. Besides, if defeated, they had
no place to retreat to. They would fight to the death.
Their fierce courage and their fighting qualities were well shown on
one famous occasion. The tribe had gone off south on the buffalo hunt,
and there were left in the village only some of the sick, the old men,
and a few boys, women and children. Among the sick who remained was
_Ska-di´ks_ (Crooked Hand), a Skidi brave, recognized as a leader in
battle, and one of the bravest warriors in the tribe. The Sioux had
learned of the departure of the Pawnees with all the fighting men, and
had planned to come down, kill all the people left at home, and
destroy the village.
One morning, to the dismay of those who had been left behind, six
hundred of the very best of the Sioux warriors rode slowly into view
over the hills, and down on to the plain above the village. They made
no charge, for it was unnecessary to hurry about killing the few
women, the old men and the sick who were to be their unresisting
victims. They wished to prolong the agony of these wretched Pawnees,
whose scalps were already theirs, and whose village would soon be only
a few heaps of smoking ruins. As they rode slowly down the hill there
was no clink of steel nor rattle of harness, only the soft rustling of
the prairie grass under the unshod hoofs of their spirited war ponies,
but this sound was drowned by the ominous music of their triumphant
war song, which, now loud, now low, was faintly borne on the breeze to
the fated village. Very deliberately they came on, singing as they
marched, proudly, like conquerors, while the sun glittered on polished
lance-head and gleaming hair plate, and the wind blew out the fringes
of their white war shirts, or gaily tossed the streaming plumes of
their superb war bonnets.
The news of their appearance was brought to Crooked Hand, where he lay
sick in his lodge. At once he threw aside the robe in which he was
wrapped, and as he rose to his feet, he cast away from him by the same
motion his sickness. His orders were quickly issued, and as promptly
obeyed. The village must fight. Tottering old men, whose sinews were
now too feeble to bend the bow, seized their long disused arms and
clambered on their horses. Boys too young to hunt, whose bodies had
never been toughened by the long journeys of the warpath, whose hearts
had not been made strong by the first fast, grasped the weapons that
they had as yet used only on rabbits and ground squirrels, flung
themselves on their ponies, and rode with the old men. Even squaws,
taking what weapons they could--axes, hoes, mauls, pestles--mounted
horses, and marshaled themselves for battle.
The force for the defense numbered two hundred; superannuated old men,
boys and women. Among them all were not, perhaps, ten active warriors,
and these had just risen from sick beds to take their place in the
line of battle. But then this little force had a leader. Crooked Hand,
mounted on a superb war pony, was as cool and unconcerned as if he
were about to ride out to a band of buffalo, instead of leading a
force of old men and children against six hundred of the best warriors
that the Sioux could muster.
At that time the Pawnee village was encompassed by a high sod wall,
and some of Crooked Hand's people wished to await the charge of the
Sioux behind this shelter, but their leader would not permit this. He
said to them, "We can conquer the Sioux anywhere." So _Ska-di´ks_ led
his forces out to meet the attack in fair open combat on the plain, on
the same ground where so many times the Pawnees had routed their
enemies. As the Pawnees passed out of the village on to the plain, the
Sioux saw for the first time the force they had to meet. They laughed
in derision, calling out bitter jibes, and telling what they would do
when they had made the charge; and, as Crooked Hand heard their
laughter, he smiled, too, but not mirthfully. He knew what perhaps the
Sioux had forgotten, that his people were single-minded, and that they
would fight until they died. Their strokes would be for their homes
and lives.
The battle began. It seemed like an unequal fight. Surely one charge
would be enough to overthrow this motley Pawnee throng, who had
ventured out to try to oppose the triumphal march of the Sioux. But it
was not ended so quickly. The fight began about the middle of the
morning, and, to the amazement of the Sioux, these old men with
shrunken shanks and piping voices, these children with their small
white teeth and soft round limbs, these women clad in skirts, and
armed with hoes, held the invaders where they were; they could make no
advance. A little latter it became evident that the Pawnees were
driving the Sioux back. Presently this backward movement became a
retreat, the retreat a rout, the rout a wild panic. Then, indeed, the
Pawnees made a great killing of their enemies. Many an old man, whose
feeble legs had long refused to bear him on the warpath, again
quavered his war cry, again counted _coup_ upon his enemy. Many a boy,
who had never shed the blood of any creature larger than a prairie
chicken, that day struck his enemy, and with shrill childish voice
shouted his whoop of triumph, as he tore away the reeking scalp. More
than one woman, used only to pounding corn and dressing robes, that
day counted her _coup_, and when the tribe returned, told what she had
done, and changed her name like a warrior.
To the Pawnees that day was like the day of Thermopylæ to the Greeks.
Crooked Hand, preëminent among the heroes of that fight, with his own
hand killed six of the Sioux, and had three horses shot under him. His
wounds were many, but he laughed at them. He was content; he had saved
the village.
The same indomitable spirit here shown has characterized the Pawnees
always. For generations they fought as their fathers had fought, in
their own way, with their native enemies, but when they were enlisted
in the Government service, and trained in the white man's ways of war,
they adapted themselves readily to their new conditions.
A body of men braver than the Pawnee Scouts, under Major Frank North
and his brother Luther, never rode on horses. They were far better
than any white soldiers that ever fought on the plains; for, besides
their natural courage, they had at their finger ends all the wonderful
wisdom of the savage. They could tell, as it seemed by instinct, where
a trail would lead, where the enemy that they were pursuing would
camp, what were his plans. They had the endurance of their prototype,
the wolf. No labor was too severe, no journey too long, if its end was
a battle with their foes. Their courage, their discipline, their
knowledge of the plains, their acquaintance with the habits of their
enemies, their endurance, made them superb soldiers; but, perhaps,
more than all this, and yet a part of all this, was the absorbing
devotion and trust which they felt for _Pa´-ni Le-shar_, their white
leader. Through all the years that they followed him, he never led
them but to victory; through all these years he never lost a man in
battle, and the belief of the Pawnees in his ability and his success
was like the devotion felt by the _Grande Armée_ for Napoleon.
II. PA´-NI LE-SHAR AND HIS SCOUTS.
No account of the Pawnees' warfare would give any just impression of
their prowess if it omitted to mention _Pa´-ni Le-shar_ and the forces
which he commanded. The Pawnee Scouts, under the gallant and able
leadership of Frank North, did splendid service against hostile
Indians. They saved hundreds of lives and millions of dollars' worth
of property, and in their campaigns wiped out in blood the memory of
many an injury done to their race by the Sioux, the Cheyennes, the
Arapahoes and the Kiowas.