The Pawnees once were a great people.  They had everything that heart could wish.  Their corn and buffalo gave them food, clothing, and shelter.  They were very light-hearted and contented when at peace; in war they were cunning, fierce, and generally successful.  Their very name was a terror to their enemies.

When the Pawnees of the Platte were sorely afflicted with smallpox, and when they were visited by their agent, he depicts in his report the most horrible scenes.  The poor wretches were utterly ignorant of any remedy or alleviation.  Some sank themselves to the mouth in the river, and awaited death which was thus hastened.  The living could not always protect the dying and dead from the wolves.  Their chief, Capote Bleu, once exclaimed to an American officer:  “Oh my father, how many glorious battles we might have fought, and not lost so many men!”

The Pawnees were probably the most degraded, in point of morals, of all the Western tribes; they were held in such contempt by the other tribes that none would make treaties with them.  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.

They were, perhaps, the most cruel of all Indian nations.  They evinced a demoniacal delight in inflicting the most exquisite tortures upon their captives.  They were impure, both in their ordinary conversation and in their daily conduct.  Still, they had some redeeming qualities.  The recognition of the claims of their relations might be emulated by our higher civilization; so impressed upon their natures was the duty to those who were related to them, that their language contains a proverb:  “Ca-si-ri pi-rus, he wi-ti ti-ruk-ta-pi-di-hu-ru—­Why, even the worms, they love each other—­much more should men.”  They were also very hospitable, very sociable, and fond of telling stories.  They really had a literature of stories and songs, which, if they could be gathered in their entirety, would make a large volume.

One form of sacrifice formerly practised in the tribe, or rather in one band—­for the other bands emphatically disclaimed any share in the barbarous rite—­stood apart in unhappy prominence.  This was the offering of human sacrifices (their captives); not burning them as an expression of embittered revenge, but sacrificing them as a religious ordinance.  What the origin of this terrible practice was the Pawnees could never definitely explain.  The rite was of long standing evidently.