Regions with significant populations | |
---|---|
Historically Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas, currently Oklahoma | |
Languages | |
Skidi dialect of Pawnee language | |
Religion | |
Indigenous religion | |
Related ethnic groups | |
Other Pawnee people, Arikara people, Wichita people [1] |
The Skidi is one of four bands of Pawnee people, a central Plains tribe. [1] They lived on the Central Plains of Nebraska and Kansas for most of the millennium prior to European contact. [1] The Skidi, also known as the Wolf band lived in the northern part of Pawnee territory. [1]
According to oral history, the Skidi were associated with the Arikara and the Wichita [1] before the Arikara moved northward. They did not join the other, southern bands of Pawnee until the mid-18th century. [1] The Skidi language was less related to the other Pawnee languages than the other three tribes' languages were related to each other. In the 18th century, the Skidi first lived on the Loup River in Nebraska.
Today, the Skidi Pawnee are enrolled in the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. [2]
The Shidi have also been known as the Wolf Pawnee, [1] French Loup Pawnee, Panismaha, or Panimaha, or Skiri.
The Skidi's main settlements were along the Platte River. Some early European explorers referred to this waterway as the Panimaha River, since this was before some of the Skidi migrated south.
In the early 18th century, the Panishmaha lived west of the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska. A 1718 French map locates les Panimaha in the vicinity of the Riv. des Panis (Platte River) with other Pawnee villages (les Panis), perhaps on the Loup River, [3] a historic territory of the Skidi. In the fall of 1724, in a village of the Kansa people, the Panismahas joined a peace council with Frenchmen, Otoes, Osages, Iowa, Missouri and Illini. [4] In about 1752 they made peace with the Comanches (les Padoucas), Wichitas and the main Pawnee groups.
By the 1770s, the Panishmaha, a group of the Skidi had broken off and moved towards Texas, where they allied with the Taovayas, the Tonkawa, Yojuanes, and other Texas tribes. This group was referred to as the Panimaha. The Skidi are notable for their performance of a type of human sacrifice, known as the Morning Star ceremony, recorded for the last time in 1838. [5]
The Panishmaha, a group within the Skidi band, moved from what is now Nebraska to the Texas-Arkansas border regions where they lived with the Taovayas. It appears that this group was also the Pannis designated in a village along the Sulphur Creek in northeast Texas in a 19th-century Spanish map. [6]
The Cheyenne are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma, and the Northern Cheyenne, who are enrolled in the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese. The tribes merged in the early 19th century.
The Pawnee are a Central Plains Indian tribe that historically lived in Nebraska and northern Kansas but today are based in Oklahoma. They are the federally recognized Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, who are headquartered in Pawnee, Oklahoma. Their Pawnee language belongs to the Caddoan language family, and their name for themselves is Chatiks si chatiks or "Men of Men".
Pawnee mythology is the body of oral history, cosmology, and myths of the Pawnee people concerning their gods and heroes. The Pawnee are a federally recognized tribe of Native Americans, originally located on the Great Plains along tributaries of the Missouri and Platte Rivers in Nebraska and Kansas and currently located in Oklahoma. They traditionally speak Pawnee, a Caddoan language. The Pawnees lived in villages of earth lodges. They grew corn and went on long bison hunts on the open plains twice a year. The tribe has four bands: the Skidi and "the South Bands" consisted of the Chawi, the Kitkahahki and the Pitahawirata Pawnee.
The Loup River is a tributary of the Platte River, approximately 68 miles (109 km) long, in central Nebraska in the United States. The river drains a sparsely populated rural agricultural area on the eastern edge of the Great Plains southeast of the Sandhills. The name of the river means "wolf" in French, named by early French trappers after the Skidi band of the Pawnee, whose name means "Wolf People," and who lived along its banks. The river and its tributaries, including the North Loup, Middle Loup, and South Loup, are known colloquially as "the Loups", comprising over 1800 mi (2900 km) of streams and draining approximately one-fifth of Nebraska.
Arikara, also known as Sahnish, Arikaree, Ree, or Hundi, are a tribe of Native Americans in North Dakota. Today, they are enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the federally recognized tribe known as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of speakers has declined markedly due to colonial legacy, lack of support, and other factors.
The Wichita people, or Kitikiti'sh, are a confederation of Southern Plains Native American tribes. Historically they spoke the Wichita language and Kichai language, both Caddoan languages. They are indigenous to Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas.
Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains of North America. While hunting-farming cultures have lived on the Great Plains for centuries prior to European contact, the region is known for the horse cultures that flourished from the 17th century through the late 19th century. Their historic nomadism and armed resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for Native Americans everywhere.
The Otoe are a Native American people of the Midwestern United States. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa, Missouria, and Ho-Chunk tribes.
The Kichai tribe was a Native American Southern Plains tribe that lived in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Their name for themselves was K'itaish.
The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičhą́ǧu Oyáte —Sicangu Oyate—, Sicangu Lakota, or "Burnt Thighs Nation". Learning the meaning of their name, the French called them the Brûlé. The name may have derived from an incident where they were fleeing through a grass fire on the plains.
The Pike-Pawnee Village Site, or Hill Farm Site, designated 25WT1 by archaeologists, is a site near the village of Guide Rock in Webster County, in the south central portion of the state of Nebraska, in the Great Plains region of the United States. It was the location of a village of the Kitkehahki band of the Pawnee people, in a region of the Republican River valley that they occupied intermittently from the 1770s to the 1820s.
Native American tribes in the U.S. state of Nebraska have been Plains Indians, descendants of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples who have occupied the area for thousands of years. More than 15 historic tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries.
Claude Charles du Tisné led the first official French expedition to visit the Osage and the Wichita Indians in 1719 in what became known as Kansas in the present-day United States.
Pahuk, also written Pahaku, or Pahuk Hill, is a bluff on the Platte River in eastern Nebraska in the United States. In the traditional Pawnee religion, it was one of five dwellings of spirit animals with miraculous powers. The Pawnee occupied three villages near Pahuk in the decade prior to their removal to the Pawnee Reservation on the Loup River in 1859.
Pedro Vial, or Pierre Vial, was a French explorer and frontiersman who lived among the Comanche and Wichita Indians for many years. He later worked for the Spanish government as a peacemaker, guide, and interpreter. He blazed trails across the Great Plains to connect the Spanish and French settlements in Texas, New Mexico, Missouri, and Louisiana. He led three Spanish expeditions that attempted unsuccessfully to intercept and halt the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
The Pawnee capture of the Cheyenne Sacred Arrows occurred around 1830 in central Nebraska, when the Cheyenne attacked a group from the Skidi Pawnee tribe, who were hunting bison. The Cheyenne had with them their sacred bundle of four arrows, called the Mahuts. During the battle, this sacred, ceremonial object was taken by the Pawnee. The Cheyenne initially made replica arrows but also tried to get the originals back. They recovered one from the Pawnee directly, either given to them or taken by them, and a second was captured by the Lakota and returned to the Cheyenne in exchange for horses. The two corresponding replicas were ceremonially returned to the Black Hills, where the arrows were traditionally believed to have originated. Eventually the bundles were re-established and the societies and their ceremonies continue into the present day.
This article details the effects of white settler contact on the Pawnee tribe, firstly the tribe ceded its land in Nebraska which it had held since the 16th century and was relocated to Oklahoma. Secondly, despite generally having peaceful relations with settlers, there was a loss of life from European-introduced diseases. Lastly came the adoption of European customs, and culture.
James Rolfe Murie was an American farmer and ethnographer conducting research among the Pawnee Tribe in Nebraska, of which he was also a member. Murie wrote the Ceremonies of Pawnee, which included accounts of songs utilized in three South Band ceremonies, constituting one of the most extensive song collections for any Native American tribe ever described. Murie also collaborated with anthropologists Alice Fletcher, George Dorsey, and Clark Wissler.