Chapter II: Origin and Migrations

The Pawnees came from the south. All the information bearing on their origin, which has as yet been secured, points to the conclusion that the primitive home of this family was in the south.

Although Mr. Dunbar has carefully traced out the later history of several of the members of this group, his researches carry us back scarcely further than the beginning of the present century, and we have no actual knowledge of the origin and early history of the Pawnees. Except the Arickaras, none of the tribes belonging to this family have ever dwelt much north of the Platte River, and in this we have an indication of their southern origin. The traditions of the tribe confirm this suggestion, and Mr. Dunbar has given other reasons, derived from his study of this people, which abundantly justify us in regarding them as migrants from the south.

There are still current among the Pawnees two traditions as to the region from which they came, but both of these are vague, and so lacking in detail as to be of little value except as suggestions which need confirmation before being accepted as having any solid basis of fact. The first of these traditions, now half forgotten, is known only to the very oldest men. It is to the effect that long ago they came from the far southwest, where they used to live in stone houses. This might point to an original home for the Pawnees in Old Mexico, and even suggests a possible connection with the so-called Pueblo tribes, who still live in houses made of stone, and entered from above.

Secret Pipe Chief, a very old Chau-i, the High Priest of the tribe, gave me the history of their wanderings in these words: "Long ago," he said, "very far back, all of one color were together, but something mysterious happened so that they came to speak different languages. They were all together, and determined that they would separate into different parties to go and get sinew. They could not all go in company, there were too many of them. They were so numerous that when they traveled, the rocks where their lodge poles dragged were worn into deep grooves. Then they were far off in the southwest, and came from beyond two ranges of mountains. When they scattered out, each party became a tribe. At that time the Pawnees and the Wichitas were together. We made that journey, and went so far east that at last we came to the Missouri River, and stopped there for a time. When the season came round, we made out of the shoulder blade of a buffalo an implement to cultivate the ground. There we made our fields."

Another very old man, Bear Chief, a Skidi, said, "Long ago we were far in the southwest, away beyond the Rio Grande. We came north, and settled near the Wichita Mountains. One summer there we planted our corn. So we came from the south. After we left the Wichita Mountains, that summer we came north as far as the Arkansas River, and made our fields, and raised corn. Afterward we went to the Mississippi River where the Missouri runs into it. My father was born while we lived on the Mississippi." As Bear Chief must be nearly or quite eighty years old, it would seem likely that the Skidi, or some village of that tribe, may have been established on the Mississippi one hundred years ago, but this was not a permanent location.

The second of these traditions tells of a migration from the southeast. It states that the tribe originally came from somewhere in the southeast, that is from what is now Missouri or Arkansas. They started north after sinew--to hunt buffalo--and followed up the game, until they reached the northern country--the region of the Republican and the Platte rivers. They found this a pleasant country, abounding in game, and they liked it, and remained there. The Wichitas accompanied them part way on their journey, but turned aside when they had reached southern Kansas, and went south again.

All the traditions agree that up to the time of the journey which brought the Pawnees to their homes on the Solomon, Republican, Platte and Loup rivers, the Wichitas were considered a part of the Pawnee tribe. They agree also that after this separation, the two divisions of the tribe lost sight of each other for a very long time, and that each was entirely ignorant as to what had become of the other. We know that for a long time they were at war, and the difference of the dialects spoken by these two divisions of the family shows that the period of separation was a long one.

The tradition of the migration of the Pawnees from the southwest is evidently much older than the one which tells of their coming from the southeast. Most of the younger men know the latter; but for the account of the journey over the mountains from the southwest and across the Rio Grande, it is necessary to go to the very old men. It is quite possible that both stories are founded on fact; and, if this is the case, the migration from the southeast may have taken place only a few generations ago. Such a supposition would in part explain its general currency at the present time.

In the existing state of our knowledge of this people, we have no facts to go on, nothing in the nature of evidence as to their early history, and we can only speculate as to the probabilities in regard to their wanderings. It may be conjectured that the Pawnees came from somewhere in Old Mexico, and, either as a number of related tribes, or as a single tribe made up of different bands, they crossed the mountains and the Rio Grande in a body, and wandered eastward across what is now Texas. From this body it seems probable that the ancestors of the Lipans and the Tonkaways were the first to separate themselves. The main tribe perhaps gradually drifted further and further to the east until it had crossed Texas and reached northwestern Louisiana, and perhaps even the neighborhood of the Mississippi River. During this long journey, which must have occupied many years--perhaps many generations--we may imagine that the Huecos and possibly the Keechies dropped behind, and remained on the plains.

How long the Pawnees sojourned in Louisiana no one can say. They now found themselves in a country, which in climate, productions, and topography, differed widely from anything they had before known. Up to this time, these people had always inhabited the high, dry tablelands of Mexico, or the almost equally arid plains of Texas, and now they had come to a country having a heavy rainfall, abounding in swamps, and overgrown with deciduous timber. The traditions of both Skidi and Pawnees speak of a time when they lived in a country where grows the cane which the white men use for fishing poles. We may imagine that this forest country was a barrier to their further progress eastward, and that it turned their steps in a new direction.

When the Pawnees left Louisiana, the Caddos certainly, and perhaps the Keechies and the Tawaconies, were left behind, and for a very long time lived in and near what is now Caddo Parish, Louisiana, where they were at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Geographical names in this region indicate that their residence there was a long one, and Caddo Lake, Caddo Fork, Caddo Gap and a town named Keatchie, still bear testimony of the former occupants of the soil. From there the Caddos moved up to the Brazos River in Texas. They have always kept up a close intimacy with the Wichitas.

Perhaps it was during the sojourn of the Pawnees on the western borders of Louisiana and Arkansas, though it may have been much earlier, that the Skidi and the Arickaras, either as a single tribe, or as already divided into two separate bands, left the Pawnees and moved north and northwest. There appears to be reason for supposing that for a while this section of the tribe lived on the Red River, the Canadian and the Arkansas, and it is quite certain that sometimes they went as far east as the banks of the Mississippi near where St. Louis now is; but their permanent home, since they have been known to the whites, was on the Platte and the Loup rivers in Nebraska.

The Pawnees with the Wichitas moved northwest into what is now the Indian Territory and southern Kansas, where they separated, the latter turning off to the south, and living at various times on the Canadian and Red rivers and near the Wichita Mountains, while the Pawnees proper slowly continued their march northward and westward, residing for a time on the Arkansas and Solomon, the Republican and Platte rivers. Here they again met the Skidi.

It is impossible to conjecture when this settlement in the northern country took place, but it was certainly long ago. Mr. Dunbar has pointed out that "_O-küt-ut_ and _oku´-kat´_ signify strictly above and below (of a stream) respectively. Now their villages have usually been situated upon the banks of the Platte, the general course of which is from west to east. Hence each of these words has acquired a new meaning, _i. e._, west and east." In the same way _Pük-tïs´-tu_--toward the Omahas, has come to mean north; and _Ki´ri-ku´ruks-tu_--toward the Wichitas, to mean south. The coining of such words points to a long sojourn by the Pawnees in the region of the Platte. It is interesting to note that the Omahas have never in historic times lived north of the Pawnees, but always east of them, though we know that long ago they did live to the north.

These remarks on the movements of the Pawnees are, to be sure, very largely speculative, but speculation guided by the hints gathered from conversations with the older men. It is a surmise as to what may have been the wanderings of these people. If it were possible to talk with all the different tribes of the family, something more definite might be reached, but at this late day this seems hopeless. A study of the Lipans, and an investigation of their relationships with other southwestern tribes, might furnish us clues of the utmost importance in tracing the origin of the Pawnee family.