Chapter I: Enemies and Methods of Warfare

The Pawnees were a race of warriors. War was their pleasure and their business. By war they gained credit, respect, fame. By war they acquired wealth.

On their long journey from their primitive home in the far southwest, they must have met, fought with and conquered many tribes. By conquest--so says tradition--they obtained their first horses, captured no one knows how long ago, in an attack on a Cheyenne village.

They were brave men, but brave after their own peculiar fashion. Their 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.