Pawnee Mortuary Traditions

Abstract

Pawnee Mortuary Traditions ROGER C. ECHO-HAWKNative American societies throughout the Western Hemisphere have evolved diverse practices and complex traditions around the disposition of human remains. In the Central Plains area of the United States, Indian societies historically have buried their dead on scaffolds, among the branches of trees, and in the earth. For an unknown span of centuries, the Pawnee dwelt in the Central Plains, residing in earthlodge towns along the rivers of Nebraska and Kansas until their removal to Oklahoma during the 1870s. The four bands of the Pawnee Nation once existed as separate tribes of Caddoan Indians: The Chaui, Kitkahahki, and Pitahawirata are sometimes collectively termed the South Bands; the fourth group, the Skidi, differ from the other Pawnee bands in certain aspects of their cultural heritage. Mortuary practices and associated religious traditions may have varied among the four Pawnee bands, but available information indicates the prevalence of basic similarities rather than substantive differences.' Ethnographic literature, Pawnee traditions, and historical records all were consulted during preparation of this paper on the treatment of the dead by the Pawnee people.* These sources show a complex heritage at work, a heritage that continues as an active presence in the lives of the Pawnee today. PREPARING FOR BURIALPawnee communities in the nineteenth century readied their dead for burial with preparations that varied "according to the rank and Roger C. Echo-Hawk, a citizen of the Pawnee tribe, is a consultant on American Indian history.

Tree-Ring-Radiocarbon Dating at a Late Contact Period Kitkahahki Pawnee Site on the Central Great Plains, Usa

“…Like many Indigenous communities during this time, the Pawnee resisted colonization and genocide; participated in global economic systems as producers, consumers, and middlemen; expanded and contracted their territory; and withstood sociopolitical instability (Wishart 1979;White 1988;Kinbacher 2012;Steinke 2012;van de Logt 2016). Within this context, Pawnee society transformed: intensifying production of trade commodities, aggregating into fortified villages, expanding and contracting residential and hunting territories, and altering ways of signaling sociopolitical status (Wedel 1936;Echo-Hawk 1992;Roper 2006;Callahan-Mills 2012;Echo-Hawk 2018;Beck 2020). However, an objective record of Pawnee movement and cultural change is severely hampered by the lack of a scientific chronology.…”

Regional Conflict, Ceramic Senescence, and Pawnee Raw Material Choice in the Late Contact Era

“…The Pawnee historically spoke a Northern Caddoan language and occupied villages west of the Missouri River, first along the Loup and Platte River valleys in Nebraska and then expanding into the Republican River valley in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas (Figure 1; Parks and Wedel 1985). The Pawnee tribe is organized into four main bands—the Chawi (Grand), Kitkahahki (Republican), Pitahawirata (Tappage), and Skiri or Skidi (Loup)—and each band had multiple villages in Pawnee territory until AD 1859 (Echo-Hawk 1992; Roper 2006a; Wedel 1936; Weltfish 1971). Archaeological data suggest that ancestral Pawnee occupied the Loup and Platte River valleys by AD 1500, and Marquette's 1673 map also documents Pawnee in this region (Hyde 1974; O'Shea 1989; Wedel 1936, 1986).…”