putting them on the ground and scratching and throwing up dust, she
would take up her hands, and have hands like a bear, with hair and
long claws.
"She used to understand how to make plums and other fruits grow on
trees. She supplied the doctors with choke cherries and plums. The
doctors had trees brought in that had no fruit on them. She would make
the plums grow, and shaking the tree, they would fall down, and
everybody would have a taste of them. This was at a doctors' dance."
[Illustration: A PARFLECHE.]
LATER HISTORY.
I. REMOVAL TO THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
The project of removing the Pawnees from their reservation on the Loup
River in Nebraska appears to have been first heard of in the year
1872. The Pawnee reservation was close to civilization, and the
settlers moving west into Nebraska coveted the Indians' lands. It was
the old story, the same one that has been heard ever since the
rapacious whites first set foot on the shores of this continent.
The Pawnees were strongly attached to their home in Nebraska. They had
always lived there, and were used to it. Their forefathers were buried
there. Up to the winter of 1873-74 they had no idea of moving. But
they were constantly being subjected to annoyances.
Settlers crowded in close to the Pawnee agency, and even located on
it on the south and east, and in the most matter of fact way drove
their teams into the Pawnee timber, and cut and carried off the Pawnee
wood, on which the tribe depended for fuel and for building materials.
This open robbery gave rise to constant disputes and bickerings
between the Indians and the whites, in which the former were
invariably worsted. On the south and east side of the reservation the
crowding and the depredations were continuous. On the north and west
the reservation was exposed to frequent incursions from the different
bands of Sioux. War parties came down from their reservations, stole
the Pawnees' horses, killed their women while at work in the fields,
and sometimes even attacked the village. These attacks, though always
successfully repelled by the Pawnees, were a continual source of
annoyance and irritation to them, while their consistent desire to
obey the rules laid down for their guidance by the Government
prevented them from retaliating in kind upon their enemies.
The first proposition to remove the Pawnees to the Indian Territory
originated with the whites, but there is some reason to think that an
independent movement with the same object in view was made by members
of the Pawnee tribe. As nearly as I can learn from conversation with
Indians who took a leading part in the movement, this project for a
removal of a part of the tribe to the south originated with Lone
Chief, the Kit-ke-hahk´-i; and was taken up and supported by Left
Hand, known also as Spotted Horse, a turbulent spirit, who was killed
a few years ago by an United States marshal; and by Frank White, an
intelligent soldier of the Chau-i band.
In the summer of 1870, Lone Chief led a visiting party, which is said
to have numbered three hundred men, south to the Wichitas. When this
party turned back to go north in the fall, many of them were sick with
chills and fever--a disease unknown to them until that time--and some
died on the way. At this time the notion of the removal had not been
suggested, but it is probable that even then Lone Chief was
considering the advisability of moving south with his own immediate
family, and taking up his residence with the Wichitas. He had not yet
spoken of this project, however, but in the winter of 1871-72 he
announced his intention of doing this, and even started on his
journey, but for some reason turned back.
The next winter--1872-73--while the tribe was absent on the buffalo
hunt, the northern Sioux came down and stole from the Pawnees a number
of horses. This made the Pawnees uneasy, and some war parties started
out. It was at this time that Lone Chief conceived the idea of
increasing the company which should proceed south with him. After some
consideration and consultation, Lone Chief, Spotted Horse and Frank
White planned that a small party should go south, and visit the
different tribes in the Indian Territory, for the purpose of learning
how these tribes would regard a general movement of the Pawnees down
into their country. The plan was not fully developed until this small
party, of which Spotted Horse and Frank White were the leaders, was on
its way.
The party visited first the Otoes and Kaws, and then going south came
to the Wichitas, Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches, and were everywhere
hospitably entertained, and given presents of horses. They asked the
chiefs and headmen of the various tribes which they visited to come
together at a certain specified time at the Wichita camp, telling them
that they had something that they wished to say to them there. The
Pawnees then returned to the Wichita village, and awaited the
appointed time.
Soon the representatives of the different tribes began to arrive. Day
after day they kept coming in, until all were present. When they had
assembled in council, Spotted Horse rose to speak. He said, "My
brothers, I want you to know one thing--We, the Pawnees, want to be
brothers, and to be at peace. I have made up my mind to come down here
with my party of Pawnees to live with you."
The chiefs representing the different tribes all expressed their
satisfaction at this announcement, and urged him to come as he had
intended. They said, "We have good land here, and lots of buffalo. We
shall be glad if you decide to come." After all had spoken, Spotted
Horse again stood up and said, "Brothers, there is here with me one
leading man among the Pawnees. He, also, will tell you what he thinks
about this." Frank White then spoke and said that he intended to
accompany Spotted Horse when he should move south. The chiefs of the
different tribes again expressed the hope that they would carry out
their intentions, and arrangements were made with the tribes that they
should come down and live with them.
It is stated that just before this visiting party started north toward
their home, news came from the Pawnee agency that the tribe had been
attacked and massacred on the Republican River by Sioux, and as they
journeyed north they learned the details of the occurrence. On
reaching the village, Spotted Horse and Frank White reported to Lone
Chief and to their families what they had done, and their action was
confirmed. The chiefs of the tribe and the agent were then notified.
Soon afterward a general council was held, at which public
announcement of their intention was made by these three men. To most
of those present the project was wholly new, and there was a good deal
of confusion in the council, the people exclaiming at the news and
discussing it.
Efforts were made by the chiefs of the bands to dissuade those who
proposed to move. The Head Chief, _Pi´ta Le-shar_, tried to persuade
Frank White not to leave the tribe, but he said that he had promised,
and he should go.
In the autumn of 1873, Lone Chief, Spotted Horse and Frank White,
accompanied by their personal following, started south. With them went
about two-thirds of the tribe. The three leaders had a pass from the
Superintendent of Indian Affairs at the Pawnee agency. The chiefs of
the tribe were still bitterly opposed to the notion of the removal,
and _Pi´ta Le-shar_, the Head Chief, exerted all his influence to
prevent the movement. After the migrating party had gone about fifty
miles, messengers from the chiefs overtook them, directing them to
return to the village. The march was stopped, and the three leaders,
as delegates, returned to the agency to learn the cause of the order.
They reached there in the evening, and spent the whole night
conferring with the agent (Burgess), to whom they gave presents to
persuade him to accede to their request to continue their journey.
Lone Chief was the most determined, and insisted that they should be
permitted to go on without interference.
At length the authorities yielded, and a new pass having been given
them, they returned to the camp. The responsibility of taking away so
large a part of the tribe was weighing heavily on these three men,
however, and they determined to send back all except their own
families. On reaching the camp, therefore, they told the Indians that
they all were to go back, but hid their own horses, pretending that
they had strayed off, so that the main body would start back without
them. After the others had moved out of camp on their return march to
the agency, the lost horses were at once found, and the three men
with their families went on south.
The following year all the tribe followed, except the Skidi, Lone
Chief, and a few personal friends, who still refused to leave the old
reservation. This small company remained in their old home one year
longer, and then they, too, went south to their present reservation.
Shortly before the removal of the tribe to the Indian Territory in
1874, _Pi´ta Le-shar_, the Head Chief, was shot, and died from his
wound. It has been stated, and generally believed, that his death
resulted from the accidental discharge of his own pistol, but there
are well-informed persons who believe that he was murdered. There is
reason to believe that the shot did not come from his own weapon, but
that he was shot by a white man in order to get rid of his influence,
which was consistently exerted to keep the Pawnees in their northern
home. The Chief's wound was not a serious one, and he was doing well
under the charge of a white surgeon, when he was induced to put
himself in the care of a Pawnee doctor, under whose treatment he died.
_Ti-ra´-wa Le-shar_, another bitter opponent of removal, had been
killed in 1873; and the death of _Pi´ta Le-shar_ left Lone Chief,
Skidi, the only man of strong character to oppose the movement.
The full history of the plot to eject the Pawnees from their northern
home may never be recorded, for there are few men alive who know the
facts. If it should be written there would be disclosed a carefully
planned and successfully carried out conspiracy to rob this people of
their lands. This outrage has cost hundreds of lives, and an
inconceivable amount of suffering, and is another damning and
ineffaceable blot on the record of the American people, and one which
ought surely to have had a place in Mrs. Jackson's "Century of
Dishonor."
II. PRESENT CONDITION AND PROGRESS.
During the first four years of their sojourn in the Indian Territory
the condition of the Pawnees was most miserable.
They had left the high, dry, sandy country of the Loup, and come south
into the more fertile, but also more humid country of the Indian
Territory, where they found a region entirely different from that to
which they had been accustomed. Soon after their settlement on their
new reservation, they were attacked by fever and ague, a disease
which had been unknown to them in their northern home, and many of
them died, while all were so weakened by disease and so discouraged by
homesickness that their nature seemed wholly changed. They lost their
old spirit and their energy, and were possessed only by a desire to
return to their northern home. This was, of course, impossible, since
their old reservation had been thrown open to settlement, and in part
occupied by the whites. During the first ten years of their sojourn in
the Territory more than one of the agents appointed to look after the
Pawnees were either incompetent or dishonest, so that the people
suffered from lack of food, and some of them even starved to death.
They were miserably poor, for they did not know how to work, and no
one tried to encourage or help them to do so. The few horses which
they had were stolen from them by white horse thieves, and they were
now in a country and under conditions where they could not practice
their old war methods. The tribes against which their expeditions had
once been made were now their neighbors and their friends.
When Major North and his brother Luther visited the agency in 1876, to
enlist scouts for General Crook's northern campaign, they found the
Pawnees in a pitiable condition. They were without food, without
clothing, without arms and without horses. Their sole covering
consisted of cotton sheets, which afforded no protection against cold
and wet. It is not strange that under such circumstances the people
died off fast. At this time Major North had orders to enlist only one
hundred scouts, but he was greatly perplexed in selecting his men, for
four hundred wanted to go with him. Every able-bodied man in the
tribe, and many who were not able-bodied, tried to get their names on
the muster roll. Each man, at any cost, sought to get away from the
suffering of his present life; from the fever that made him quake, the
chill that caused him to shiver, and above all from the deadly
monotony of the reservation life. After Major North had enlisted his
quota of men and started with them on his way north, more than a
hundred others followed him on foot to Arkansas City, in the hope that
he could be persuaded to increase his force, or else that some of
those enlisted would drop out through sickness, and there might be
room for others.
The wretched condition of the Pawnees continued up to about 1884 or
1885. Before this time the people had become in a measure acclimated
in their new home, and had come to realize that it was absolutely
necessary for them to go to work if the tribe was to continue to
exist. They began to work; at first only a few, but gradually many, of
the Skidi, and then the Chau-i and the Kit-ke-hahk´-i. Presently a
point was reached where it was no longer necessary to issue them
Government rations. They raised enough on their farms to support
themselves. Each year of late they have done better and better. A
drought one season, and a cyclone another, destroyed their crops, but,
undiscouraged and undaunted, they push ahead, striving earnestly to
become like white men. The Pita-hau-erats are the least progressive of
the four bands, and many of them still live in dirt lodges, and
cultivate patches of corn scarcely larger than those tilled in their
old villages; but as the other bands advance, and as the results of
manual labor are seen and understood by those who are more idle, they,
too, will catch the spirit of progress, and will lay hold of the plow.
Last March, as I drove along toward the agency, and as we came in
sight of Black Bear Creek, I was surprised to see what looked like
good farm houses dotting the distant bottom. A nearer view and a
closer investigation showed me that the most well-to-do of the Pawnees
live in houses as good as those of many a New England land owner, and
very much better than those inhabited by new settlers in the farther
West. Many of them have considerable farms under fence, a barn, a
garden in which vegetables are raised, and a peach orchard. They
realize that as yet they are only beginning, but to me, who knew them
in their old barbaric condition, their progress seems a marvel.
Nowadays by far the greater number of the Pawnees wear civilized
clothing, ride in wagons, and send their children to the agency
school. They are making rapid strides toward civilization, just such
progress as might be expected from the intelligent and courageous
people that they are and always have been.
The Pawnees receive from the Government a perpetual annuity of thirty
thousand dollars, of which one-half is paid in money, and one-half in
goods. Besides this they have a credit with the Government of about
two hundred and eighty thousand dollars (the proceeds of the sale of
their old reservation in Nebraska), on which they receive interest;
and for some years past they have leased to cattlemen about one
hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of their reservation, for
which they receive about three thousand eight hundred dollars per
annum. It will thus be seen that in addition to the crops which they
raise, the tribe is fairly well provided with money. While a
considerable part of this is, of course, wasted, being spent for
trifles and for luxuries, it is nevertheless the fact that a certain
proportion of it is invested by the Indians in tools, farming
implements, and in furniture. Three years ago the Indians merely
dropped their corn into the furrow, while some planted with a hoe.
There was then only one corn-planter on the reservation. Now there are
thirteen of these implements of improved pattern, bought by the
Indians, and paid for with their own money. Reapers and mowers belong
to the Indian Department, and are loaned, not issued, and these pass
round from one family to another. Within the last four years one
hundred breaking and stirring plows have been issued, and one hundred
and five double shovel cultivators. Eighty wagons and one hundred and
fifty sets of harness have been issued in the same length of time.
Besides these, eight two-horse cultivators are loaned them by the
Government.
The Pawnees seem to be saving up their money to put into farming
implements, and they are looking ahead. Two-thirds of the houses
built in the last three years have been built by the Chau-i, who are
pushing the Skidi hard in their advance toward civilization.
The following table, taken from the official papers of the Indian
Bureau, gives some statistics as to the progress made by the Pawnees
during the last three years:
1885. 1886. 1887. 1888.
Number of Indians 1,045 998 918 869
Number of male Indians .... 483 414 ....
Number of female Indians .... 515 504 ....
Number speaking English .... 289 .... 225
Number can read (youths) .... 100 90 100
Number can read (adults) .... 58 60 75
Number wearing citizen's
dress wholly .... 300 350 200
Number wearing citizen's
dress in part .... 400 450 600
Number doing some farming .... 324 400 *125
Number having other
civilized work .... 5 6 *7
Number of births .... 28 45 54
Number of deaths .... 77 125 106
Houses occupied by
Indians .... 61 82 98
Proportion of Indians
self-supporting .... 2/3 1/2 2/3
_Farming operations--_
Number of acres cultivated
by Indians 971 1,360 2,094 2,560
Number of acres broken by
Indians .... 67 310 340
Number of acres under
fence 400 1,597 2,597 5,200
Number of rods fencing put
up during year 200 4,435 2,181 2,975
_Produce raised by Indians--_
Number bushels of wheat 1,177 1,273 5,000 2,500
Number bushels of corn,
estimated 35,000 26,120 30,000 60,000
Number bushels of oats 969 .... 640 2,300
Est.
Number bushels of potatoes 100 100 2,500 ....
Number bushels of onions 10 50 100 150
Number bushels of beans 300 .... 500 750
Number of melons 5,225 50,000 50,000 ....
Number of pumpkins 3,000 5,000 .... ....
Number tons of hay 500 .... 600 800
_Live stock owned by Indians--_
Horses, estimated .... 1,200 1,400 1,500
Mules, estimated 15 20 20 25
Cattle, estimated 300 380 575 500
Hogs, estimated 100 .... 200 ....
Fowls, estimated 200 2,500 2,500 3,000
* Families.
Twelve allotments of land made 1888. Whole number allotments
to date (1888), 175. In 1885 Indians sawed 50,050 feet of
lumber, and cut 126 cords of wood.
In 1886 the Indians hauled 83,814 pounds of freight, for
which they were paid $541.54.
During the year 1888 three Indian apprentices learned a
trade.
Besides the crops raised, the Indians during 1888 sawed
50,000 feet of lumber, and cut 300 cords of wood.
In 1886 a severe cyclone and hail storm destroyed the growing
crops, and in 1887 a prolonged drought again ruined them.
During these two years it was necessary to issue to the
Indians half rations and one-third rations respectively. This
year (1888-89) no rations have been issued.
As will be seen by these figures, corn is the principal crop raised
by the Pawnees, and a large part of the surplus beyond their own wants
is sold at from twenty-five to fifty cents a bushel to the dealers in
Arkansas City, or to the cattlemen in the neighborhood. The Pawnees
have as yet few cattle, their old meat-eating habits have not yet been
overcome, and there is a tendency among them to eat any cattle they
may obtain rather than to use them for breeding purposes. They ought
to be encouraged to keep cattle, to which they could feed their corn,
and in this way obtain a better return for their labor than is yielded
by the direct sale of the grain. They are fairly well provided with
horses, but most of these are small, and of the old-fashioned Indian
pony type. They should be encouraged to raise a better class of
horses, and at least two well bred heavy stallions should be kept by
the Government at Pawnee for Indian use. There is one now at Ponca,
thirty-five miles away, but the Pawnees will not take their mares so
far.
Much of the improvement in the condition of the Pawnees has taken
place within the last three years, and much of it has been due, as I
believe, to the wisdom and judgment of Major Osborne, their agent,
and to the Messrs. McKenzie, who have for three years or more been the
clerks directly in charge of these people. These gentlemen appear to
have been honest and firm, and yet helpful in their treatment of the
people under their charge, and the results of their administration
show for themselves, and are something in which these officials may
feel a just pride.
Few and rapidly diminishing in numbers as are the Pawnee people, I
have yet confidence that by the innate strength of their character
their decline may be checked, and their race may rise again. It can
never do so in its old purity. It must take to itself fresh blood from
other stocks, and thus renew its vitality. What I hope for the Pawnee,
to-day and in the future, is that the native vigor of the race, the
strong heart and singleness of purpose, which in ancient times led the
wild brave to success on his warpath, and gave his tribe so high a
place among the savage warriors of the plains, may now be exercised in
the pursuits of peace; and that the same qualities may give to these
earnest toilers, as they tread new paths, strength, courage and
endurance to hold a front rank among those Indians, who, to-day so far
behind, are nevertheless resolutely setting their steps toward a place
with civilized people.
But whatever the fate of the Pawnee people--whether, like so many
other native stocks, it shall dwindle away and disappear, leaving
behind it no reminder of its existence, or whether its native force
shall enable it under its new conditions to survive and make some
mark--we may remember it always as a race of strong, brave people,
whose good qualities are deserving of more than a passing tribute.
* * * * *
It was the last day of my stay at the Pawnee agency. I had seen many
an old friend; had laughed and joked with some over incidents of
former years, and with others had mourned over brave warriors or wise
old men who were no longer with us. My visit had been full of
pleasure, and yet full of pain. When I had first known the tribe it
numbered more than three thousand people, now there are only a little
more than eight hundred of them. The evidences of their progress
toward civilization are cheering. They are now self-supporting. They
no longer die of hunger. But the character of the people has changed.
In the old barbaric days they were light-hearted, merry, makers of
jokes, keenly alive to the humorous side of life. Now they are
serious, grave, little disposed to laugh. Then they were like children
without a care. Now they are like men, on whom the anxieties of life
weigh heavily. Civilization, bringing with it some measure of material
prosperity, has also brought to these people care, responsibility,
repression. No doubt it is best, and it is inevitable, but it is sad,
too.
It was my last day, and I was again sitting with Eagle Chief, telling
him that the time had come for me to go. He said, "Ah, my son, I like
to see you here. I like to sit with you, and to talk over the old
times. My heart is sick when I think that you are going away, and that
we may never see each other any more. But," he added, solemnly, "it
may be that _Ti-ra´-wa_ will be good to us, and will let us live a
long time until we are very old, and then some day we may meet again."
INDEX.
Agriculture in the old times, 253;
present, 401.
Animals, sacred character of, 17;
see also Nahu´rac.
Antelope and deer, story of, 204.
Apaches, 392.