ABORIGINAL OCCUPANTS1-SPANISH AND

EXPLORERS-AMERICAN

THE natural tendency of migration since his

tory began has been westward; and the movements of the Amerind are not an exception to this general rule. As the streams which drain North America have a general trend from north to south, and as the rule for human activity is to proceed along the lines of least resistance, it might be supposed that the Amerind would follow up these streams and change the general order by moving forward from south to north or from north to south. There was a stronger influence than the mere contour of the land which drew the tide of emigration, although this had its effect to such an extent that the route of travel had a west-by-northwest trend. The food supply became the main factor in determining the direction of migration. The buffalo, which though indigenous to the whole central region of North America were partial to the open country, enticed the Indian to the Nebraska plains which they possessed in vast herds. This useful animal was the source of supply for every want: food from his flesh, raiment and shelter from his hide, implements from his bones, vessels for holding liquids from his intestines, and fuel from his dung. The buffalo made it possible for great numbers of Indians to subsist in comparative ease on the treeless plains of Nebraska. How much of the food supply of the aborigines, before the advent of the buffalo, may have been derived from agricultural pursuits is unknown; but it is certain that as the tribes spread westward and the buffalo became more numerous agriculture decreased, until, when white settlers

'This classification of Indian tribes and bands should be credited to Mr. E. E. Blackman, archeologist of the Nebraska State Historical Society; and the particulars as to the numbers and location of certain tribes, before the organization of Nebraska territory, to a paper by Clyde B. Aitchison.

first came in contact with the tribes of Nebraska, little attention was given to it.

By far the greater number of Indian tribes, which have inhabited the territory that now comprises comprises Nebraska, followed this general rule of migration from east to west. These tribes belonged to two linguistic families, the Algonkian2 and Siouan. Both of these great families sprang from the region east of the Appalachian mountains and in turn occupied nearly the whole of the Mississippi valley.

The first occupants of Nebraska did not follow this rule. The Caddoan linguistic family had its home in the south near the banks of the Red river, and migrated northward, occupying the valleys of the Kansas river, and reaching northward to the valley of the Platte river and westward to the foothills of the mountains. Two other linguistic families, the Shoshonean and Kiowan, encroached on our territory from the west. They hunted along the headwaters of the Republican and Platte rivers, and claimed part of the territory of this state, but few, if any, ruins of their permanent homes are found within its present limits. Only these five linguistic families were found in Nebraska, and but two of them, the Caddoan and Siouan, are of importance to our history. Tribes of these two families had their permanent habitat within the state, and fought with one another and among themselves for supremacy on our eastern border and along the Platte valley.

The original home of the Caddoan linguistic family was on the Red river of the south.

2 In the spelling of the names of Indian tribes it has been found more practicable to follow the Standard dictionary than the diverse and contradictory usage of scientific writers in the reports of the Bureau of Ethnology.-(Ed.)

Prior to the year 1400 one band, known as the Skidi, branched off from the main stock and drifted to the Platte valley. The exact line of migration is difficult to determine, but a tradition says this tribe lived as allies of the Omahas near the mouth of the Ohio river. It is not impossible that they may have followed up the Missouri river in coming to the Platte valley, where, according to Dunbar, they were located in 1400. Prior to 1500 another band branched off from the main stock and drifted northward to a point near the present Kansas-Nebraska

line.

Here the Wichitas
turned back and went

south, while the Pawnees moved northward and occupied the Platte valley and intervening country. In 1541 Coronado found the Wichitas near the Kansas river and sent a summons to the "Lord of Harahey" (the Pawnee) to visit him, which he did with two hundred naked warriors. This is the earliest authentic record of Indian occupancy of Nebraska. This is the first time civilized man (if we can call Coronado's

conflicting that we may only say that it is possibly true.

How far Onate penetrated in his trip north-. eastward from New Mexico, in 1599, is difficult to determine. He says he visited the city of Quivera, which was on the north bank of a wide and shallow river (very like the Platte). Platte). He says he fought with the "Escanzaques" and killed "a thousand." This battle may have been in Nebraska. Penalosa also claims to have visited the same locality

followers civilized) ever saw an Indian from what is now Nebraska. All history before this is legendary, and legendary history is so

Mag. of Am. Hist., vol. 5, P. 321.

14th Ann. Rept. Bureau of Ethnology; Harahey, vol. 2, p. 68.

See J. W. Savage, Rept. Hist. Soc., vol. II, p. 114. Mirpiya Luta (Red Cloud), chief of the Ogallala Sioux, was born in May, 1821, on the banks of Blue creek in what is now Deuel county, Nebrask. At sixteen he first went out with a war party and received his present name. During the next twenty years a successful leader in the Sioux wars against the Pawnees, Crows, and Shoshones. Killed Bull Bear, a prominent Sioux chief, in a trib 1 feud about 1845. One of the Sioux field generals in wars with the United States

in 162, to have me the "Escanzaques," and to have beaten them in a like encounter. When these brief glimpses into Spanish history are substantiated by further research we may be able to add some early data bearing on Indian occupancy of Nebraska.

The Pawnees (proper), consisting of three main tribes, the Choui (or Grand), the Pita-how-e-rat (or Tapage), and the Kitke-hak-i (or Republican), emigrated to the Platte valley prior to 1500. They held the country fifty miles west of the Missouri river, and eventu

ally conquered the Skidi band, which had come here a hundred years before, and adopted it into their own tribe. Before the Pawnees

1864-68. Planned the fight at Ft. Phil Kearney, December, 1866, in which ninety-six soldiers were slain. Abandoned the war path in 1869 and has been at peace with the whites since. Prominent in all the treaties and councils of his tribe since then. For many years leader of opposition to U. S. Indian agents. Has been to Washington sixteen times. His home for the past twenty-five years has been a small frame house near Pine Ridge agency. Serious and earnest in speech; shrewd and wary in the field and council. At present (1904) totally blind and nearing his end. The above picture shows him as he was in the autumn of 1890just before the last Sioux war.-(A. E. Sheldon.)

came, however, a band called Arikara had drifted away from the Skidi band and established itself on the Missouri river, but out of the bounds of Nebraska. The Arikaras came into Nebraska and lived with the Skidi tribe for three years, from 1832 to 1835, when they returned home.

In the Huntsman's Echo of February 21, 1861, the editor thus perspicuously describes the condition of the Pawnees on their reserve at Genoa, as he had ascertained it by a visit there a few days before:

"The Pawnees number at present about four thousand souls and a fraction over, and when at home' live in a cluster of huts built with crotches and poles, covered, top and sides, with willows, then with grass and dirt, giving the appearance at a little distance of an immense collection of 'potato hills,' all of a circular shape and oval. The entrance is through a passage walled with earth, the hole in the center at top serving both for window and chimney, the fire being built in the center. Along the sides little apartments are divided off from the main room by partitions of willow, rush or flag, some of them being neatly and tidily constructed, and altogether these lodges are quite roomy and comfortable, and each is frequently the abode of two or more families. In these villages there is no regularity of streets, walks, or alleys, but each builds in a rather promiscuous manner, having no other care than to taste and convenience.

The tribe is divided into five bands, each being under a special chief or leader, and the whole confederation being under one principal chief. Each band has its habitation separate and distinct from the other, three bands living in villages adjoining and all composing one village, the other two villages, some little distance. There is frequently some considerable rivalry between the several bands in fighting, hunting, and other sports, and not infrequently one band commits thefts upon the effects of another."

At this time, we are told, the Pawnees had several thousand horses, but owing to the hard winter hundreds had died from soretongue and other diseases. The animals lived out all the winter upon the dry grass; but if the snow was too deep for them to reach it, cottonwood trees were cut down and the

Mag. Am. Hist., vols. 4 and 5.

These

horses would subsist upon the bark. horses were above the luxuries of civilized life, and refused to eat corn when it was placed before them. They were valued at from thirty to sixty dollars each.

The Pawnees at this time usually took two general hunts each year in which all the people, old, young, great, and small participated, abandoning their villages to go to the buffalo range. From the spoils of the summer hunt they made jerked meat and lodge skins; and from those of the fall hunt, in October and November, they made robes, furs, tanned skins, and dried meat. These Indians had a field of considerable extent near each village where the land was allotted to the various families, and goodly quantities of corn and beans were grown. With these and a little flour and sugar they managed to eke out a miserable existence, sometimes full-fed and sometimes starved.

"The females are the working bees of the hive; they dig up the soil, raise and gather the crops, cut timber and build the lodges, pack wood and water, cook, nurse the babies, carry all the burdens, tan the skins and make

the robes and moccasins. The lords of the other sex recline by the fire or in the shade, kill the game and their enemies, do the stealing and most of the eating, wear the most ornaments, and play the dandy in their way athletic figure, as straight as an arrow and to a scratch. They are of a tall, graceful, anc as proud as a lord, whilst the squaws are short, thick, stooping, poorly clad, filthy, and squalid. Parentless children and the very aged are sometimes left behind, or by the wayside, to perish as useless."

Pike visited the Republican Pawnees in 1806; they dwelt near the south line of the state until about 1812, when they joined the rest of the band north of the Platte river. Dunbar1 gives the location of the various tribes in 1834: the Choui band resided on the south bank of the Platte, twenty miles above the mouth of the Loup; the Kit-ke-hak-i lived eighteen miles northwest, on the north side of the Loup; the Pita-how-e-rat, eleven miles farther up the Loup, and the Skidi, five miles. above these; and he says they changed their