Pawnee people

“ 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. ”

“ Such a man, reader, once held the mighty Pawnee nation under his thumb; they could go and come but at his bidding, he could inaugurate a massacre with a word, and save a captive with the same. He was still young, and an American, bred and born.
He seemed proud of his authority as he galloped at the head of his braves into the Indian village, and when he drew rein in the square, if “square” the plot of ground that held the council-house can be called, he raised his symmetrical body in the stirrups, and flashed his eyes over the concourse of noisy people below. ”

“ These Pawnees staid two months with the Wichitas, and all their troubles seemed at an end. At length Running Chief called a council of the chiefs, and told them that now he wished to make ready to go home to his village. He thanked them for all that they had done for him, and said that now he would go. The chiefs said, “It is well. We are glad that [Pg 64] you have been with us and visited us. Take the good news back to your tribe. Tell them that we are one people, though long separated. Let the road between our villages be made white. ”

“ An old French trader, who has known these people for many years, states that the Skidi are called Wolf Pawnees from the river Loup, on which they lived; that Grand is an abbreviation for Grand-pas, because the Chau-i were mostly tall men and took long steps; that the Kit-ke-hahk ́-i were called Republican from the river of that name, and the Pita-hau-erat Tapaje (Fr. noisy) , because they are noisy and restless, and are continually moving about from place to place. ”

“ On the other hand, when, as was [Pg xvii] sometimes the case, a conquered tribe was condemned to pay a war indemnity, they paid it in horses. It is related that when the Skidi broke their treaty with the other bands, and were afterward conquered by them, they were obliged to pay such a fine.
This view of Indian warfare being understood, the motive of the hero stories here given, and of many of the folk-tales, becomes plain.
The Pawnees are essentially a religious people. They worship Ti-ra ́-wa, who is in and of everything. ”

“ Yet there should be room among these stories for the account of an educated Pawnee—a brave—who by his wise counsel to an Indian of a hostile tribe saved many lives, both of Indians and of white men. Little Warrior was educated at a Western college, but has shown his bravery on the field of battle, and has sacrificed a scalp to Ti-ra ́-wa. ”

“ 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 ”

“ To earn a living by toil, to wrest [Pg xi] subsistence from the earth, this is the problem confronting the Pawnees to-day, the task which is engaging the sinew and purpose of the tribe. In the transition stage, the memory of the old days, of old manners and rites and ceremonies and of old heroes, is with the elders of the race, those ancient braves whose lives bridge the past and the present. When I visited the Agency last March, it was to write down from the lips of these old men such material as I could collect. ”

“ They were populous at one time, and were the most inveterate enemies of the whites, killing them wherever they met.
The Pawnees in reality comprised five bands, which constituted the entire nation: The Grand Pawnee Band; the Republican Pawnee Band; Pawnee Loups, or Wolf Pawnees; Pawnee Picts, or Tattooed Pawnees; and Black Pawnees. Each land was independent and under its own chief, but for mutual defence, or in other cases of urgent necessity, they united in one body, and in the early days on the plains could raise from thirty to forty thousand warriors. ”

“ In minor matters, the chief gave his orders without consultation with any one, but more important affairs were usually discussed in council by chiefs, head men and warriors, and the opinion of the assemblage prevailed, even if it were opposed to the opinion of the chief. Among the Pawnees, as elsewhere, a man’s personal character [Pg 261] determined the position he should occupy and the influence he should wield. Bravery, wisdom, and personal popularity were the important factors in acquiring and retaining influence and authority. ”

“ When a white Boxer kills a Pawnee and destroys his property, the other Pawnees do not trouble to seek him out, they kill any white person that comes along; also, they make some white village pay deceased's heirs the full cash value of deceased, together with full cash value of the property destroyed; they also make the village pay, in addition, thirteen times the value of that property into a fund for the dissemination of the Pawnee religion, which they regard as the best of all religions for the softening and humanizing of the heart of man. ”

“ The chief of the latter tribe, received the answer with great philosophy; nor did he attempt to utter any thing in reply. Perhaps, too, he did not wish to invite a second attack, from so rough a quarter. When the Pawnee had finished, the commissioner interposed, and after a short time, harmony was restored, and several of the inferior chiefs made their harangues. They were of a more calm and conciliating nature, and gradually tended to soothe the inflamed feelings of [294] their foes. The council lasted until sunset, when the terms of the treaty were finally adjusted. ”

“ The boomers, who numbered thousands, had among them several daring and well-known leaders, but not one was better known or more daring than the leader who is known in these pages as Pawnee Brown. This man was not alone a great Indian scout and hunter, but also one who had lived much among the Indians, could speak their language, and who had on several occasions acted as interpreter for the Government. ”

“ It was the unremitted industry of the settlers and their descendants, the hard labor and toil of persevering fortitude, that were the true causes of the prosperity of America. The former tyranny of England served to people it, and the virtue of the adventurers to improve it. Ask the man, who, with his axe, has cleared a way in the wilderness, and now possesses an estate, what made him rich, and he will tell you the labor of his hands, the sweat of his brow, and the blessing of heaven. ”

“ Trotter has shown that a herd (pack, tribe or nation) necessarily approves of whatever actions are done in its interests as good or right, and disapproves of the contrary actions as bad or wrong. Confident that its beliefs and customs are good and right, the pack persecutes dissenters and nonconformists. “Good” is a relative idea. “‘The good are good warriors and hunters,’ said a Pawnee chief ”

“ Thus when the chief re-appeared, he was charged before the council of braves with treachery of the most abhorrent kind, and his Pawnee wife cited as a proof of their accusations; and but for his well-remembered strength and resistless fortune, which no one cared to dispute, even his proud and indignant denial would scarcely have delivered him from his former companions on the war-path. ”

“ Two stern and stalwart warriors of the Pawnee tribe, who were deadly enemies to the Iteans, chanced to be passing that way, and, recognizing the call as that of an enemy, sprang from the thicket, seized the trembling maiden, and bore her away in triumph. Many a weary league she travelled on by the side of her merciless captors, ere she reached their distant encampment. Worn, exhausted in strength and desponding in heart, she fell to the earth in the midst of the throng that gathered around her, and besought them to kill her at once, and let her go to her poor infant brother. ”

“ We shall not readily forget the mixed sensations of concern and risibility with which, day after day, from the first annunciation of Master Payne’s expected appearance at Philadelphia, we were obliged to listen to the misjudging applause of his panegyrists. There is a narrowness of heart, and a nudity of mind too common in our nature, under the impulse of which few people can bring themselves to do homage to one person without magnifying their incense by the depreciation of some other. According to these a favourite has not his proper station, till all others are put below him ”

“ THE work of which we offer a translation to the public has created the greatest sensation in England. Paine, that man of freedom, who seems born to preach "Common Sense" to the whole world with the same success as in America, explains in it to the people of England the theory of the practice of the Rights of Man. ”

“ Every aristocratical family has an appendage of family beggars hanging round it, which in a few ages, or a few generations, are shook off, and console themselves with telling their tale in almshouses, workhouses, and prisons. This is the natural consequence of aristocracy. The peer and the beggar are often of the same family. One extreme produces the other: to make one rich many must be made poor; neither can the system be supported by other means.
There are two classes of people to whom the laws of England are particularly hostile, and those the most helpless ”

“ Indeed, it was just here that the Panoukians, male and female, were so astonishing. For generations in England personal ambition had been the only motive force, the sole measure of virtue, and it was personal ambition that they utterly ignored. ”

“ Thus we see in Daniel Payne a diamond in the rough, in the slave State of South Carolina, but by the predetermined will of God, brought to the free North and polished, as it were, by the hand of the jeweler. We see all the work that the great Creator had given him to do, and how well he did it, too. And what we have said of Payne could as well be said of thousands of others—men in whom the spirit of right and ambition dwells; men who ever forge to the front: men whom God helps, because He sees that they are also willing to help themselves. ”

“ Alas! are those people who call themselves Englishmen, of so little internal consequence, that when America is gone, or shuts her eyes upon them, their sun is set, they can shine no more, but grope about in obscurity, and contract into insignificant animals? ”

“ What is undoubtedly true is that civilization does not always indicate social progress, and what is truer is that civilization does not necessarily indicate the humanization of the people.
Chremes, the very character in Terence12 who says “Nothing human is alien to me,” is the one who reproves his wife for not having gotten rid of their child. ”

“ But everything we see or hear offensive to our feelings and derogatory to the human character should lead to other reflections than those of reproach. Even the beings who commit them have some claim to our consideration. How then is it that such vast classes of mankind as are distinguished by the appellation of the vulgar, or the ignorant mob, are so numerous in all old countries? The instant we ask ourselves this question, reflection feels an answer. They rise, as an unavoidable consequence, out of the ill construction of all old governments in Europe, England included with the rest. ”

“ No orthodox mob is found. Here and there some halloo of the old Paine hunt is heard dying away in the distance, but the conservative religious and political press, American and English, has generally revised the traditional notions, and estimated the evidence with substantial justice. ”

“ In France, we have found an affectionate friend and faithful ally; in Britain, we have found nothing but tyranny, cruelty, and infidelity.
But the happiness is, that the mischief you threaten, is not in your power to execute; and if it were, the punishment would return upon you in a ten-fold degree. The humanity of America has hitherto restrained her from acts of retaliation, and the affection she retains for many individuals in England, who have fed, clothed and comforted her prisoners, has, to the present day, warded off her resentment, and operated as a screen to the whole. ”

“ He was a newcomer, and unknown to the ex-Deputy.
“To the devil with your Rights of Man!” ended the tall prisoner. He caught at Paine, who had turned an angry shoulder to him and was going. “Is it not so?” he demanded. “They are just one’s right, it appears, to run with the crowd the crowd’s way. If one takes the Liberty to pause a moment for reflection, one is trampled underfoot by Fraternity and packed off to discuss Equality with the other heads in the basket.” ”

“ Your experiment in the Jerseys is sufficient to teach you that you have something more to do than barely to get into other people's houses; and your new converts, to whom you promised all manner of protection, and seduced into new guilt by pardoning them from their former virtues, must begin to have a very contemptible opinion both of your power and your policy. ”

“ What are the present Governments of Europe but a scene of iniquity and oppression? What is that of England? Do not its own inhabitants say it is a market where every man has his price, and where corruption is common traffic at the expense of a deluded people? No wonder, then, that the French Revolution is traduced. ”

“ Domineering will not do over those, who, by a progress in life, have become equal in rank to their parents, that is, when they have families of their own; and though they may conceive themselves the subjects of their advice, will not suppose them the objects of their government. I do not, by drawing this parallel, mean to admit the title of parent country, because, if it is due any where, it is due to Europe collectively, and the first settlers from England were driven here by persecution. ”

“ Be not our tyrants in all: Permit our names to be sometime pronounced beyond the narrow circle in which we live: Permit friendship, or at least love, to inscribe its emblems on the tomb where our ashes repose; and deny us not the public esteem which, after the esteem of one's self, is the sweetest reward of welldoing.'"
Thus the Pennsylvania Magazine, in the time that Paine edited it, was a seed-bag from which this sower scattered the seeds of great reforms ripening with the progress of civilization. Through the more popular press he sowed also. ”