PAWNEE

Hero Stories and Folk-Tales

WITH NOTES ON


THE ORIGIN, CUSTOMS AND CHARACTER OF
THE PAWNEE PEOPLE

BY

GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

New York
Forest and Stream Publishing Company
1889

Copyright, 1889, by
George Bird Grinnell.

SIGNAL—“WHO ARE YOU?” ANSWER—“PA´-NI.”

TO THE MEMORY OF

MAJOR FRANK NORTH

—Pa´-ni Le-shar—

This Record of His People is Inscribed.

[Pg v]

NOTE.

Last spring I visited the Pawnee Agency in theIndian Territory. On the day after my arrival, Irode over to the house of Eagle Chief, whom, underhis warrior name, White Eagle, I had known formany years. Entering the door, I found myself inthe presence of the Chief, who, after quickly puttinghis hand over his mouth in his astonishment,greeted me with a cordial deep-voiced Lau. Thenwe sat down and filled the pipe and talked. Throughall our talk I could see that he was curious to knowthe object of my visit. At last he said, “My son Iam glad that you have come to us once more. Mymind is big when I look at you and talk to you. Itis good that you are here. Why have you comeagain to the Pawnee village? What brings you hereat this time?”

I answered, “Father, we have come down here to[Pg vi]visit the people and to talk to them; to ask themabout how things used to be in the olden times, tohear their stories, to get their history, and then toput all these things down in a book, so that in theyears to come, after the tribe have all become likewhite people, the old things of the Pawnees shallnot be forgotten.”

The Chief meditated for a while and then said,“It is good and it is time. Already the old thingsare being lost, and those who knew the secrets aremany of them dead. If we had known how to write,we would have put all these things down, and theywould not have been forgotten, but we could notwrite, and these stories were handed down from oneto another. The old men told their grandchildren,and they told their grandchildren, and so the secretsand the stories and the doings of long ago have beenhanded down. It may be that they have changed asthey passed from father to son, and it is well thatthey should be put down, so that our children, whenthey are like the white people, can know what weretheir fathers’ ways.”

Most of the material contained in this little bookwas collected on that visit.

[Pg vii]

CONTENTS.