The Pawnee Indians

No assessment of the Plains Indians can be complete without some account of the Pawnees. They ranged from Nebraska to Mexico and, when not fighting among themselves, fought with almost every other Plains tribe at one time or another. Regarded as "aliens" by many other tribes, the Pawnees were distinctively different from most of their friends and enemies. George Hyde spent more than thirty years collecting materials for his history of the Pawnees. The story is both a rewarding and a painful one. The Pawnee culture was rich in social and religious development. But the Pawnees' highly developed political and religious organization was not a source of power in war, and their permanent villages and high standard of living made them inviting and 'fixed targets for their enemies. They fought and sometimes defeated larger tribes, even the Cheyennes and Sioux, and in one important battle sent an attacking party of Cheyennes home in humiliation after seizing the Cheyennes' sacred arrows. While many Pawnee heroes died fighting off enemy attacks on Loup Fork, still more died of smallpox, of neglect at the hands of the government, and of errors in the policies of Quaker agents. In many ways The Pawnee Indians is the best synthesis Hyde ever wrote. It looks far back into tribal history, assessing Pawnee oral history against anthropological evidence and examining military patterns and cultural characteristics. Hyde tells the story of the Pawnees objectively, reinforcing it with firsthand accounts gleaned from many sources, both Indian and white.

Explores the history and culture of the Pawnee Indians.

The Pawnees have appeared in many historical documents, from early Spanish accounts and journals of American explorers and adventurers to fascinating accounts of daily life by Quaker agents and Presbyterian missionaries during the nineteenth century. In recent years, Pawnee activists have taken the lead in the repatriation struggle and have fought for respectful burials of their ancestors' remains. This is the first comprehensive bibliography of the Pawnees, examining a wide spectrum of books and journals on Pawnee history, culture, and ethnology. Chapters are devoted to topics such as: Pawnee archaeology and anthropology, Myths and legends, Social organization, Material culture, Music and dance, Religion, Education, Repatriation. Entries are thoroughly annotated and evaluated, making this up-to-date research tool essential for historians, ethnologists, and other Pawnee researchers.

Between 1864 and 1877, during the height of the Plains Indian wars, Pawnee Indian scouts rendered invaluable service to the United States Army. They led missions deep into contested territory, tracked resisting bands, spearheaded attacks against enemy camps, and on more than one occasion saved American troops from disaster on the field of battle. In War Party in Blue, Mark van de Logt tells the story of the Pawnee scouts from their perspective, detailing the battles in which they served and recounting hitherto neglected episodes. Employing military records, archival sources, and contemporary interviews with current Pawnee tribal members—some of them descendants of the scouts—Van de Logt presents the Pawnee scouts as central players in some of the army's most notable campaigns. He argues that military service allowed the Pawnees to fight their tribal enemies with weapons furnished by the United States as well as to resist pressures from the federal government to assimilate them into white society. According to the author, it was the tribe's martial traditions, deeply embedded in their culture, that made them successful and allowed them to retain these time-honored traditions. The Pawnee style of warfare, based on stealth and surprise, was so effective that the scouts' commanding officers did little to discourage their methods. Although the scouts proudly wore the blue uniform of the U.S. Cavalry, they never ceased to be Pawnees. The Pawnee Battalion was truly a war party in blue.