Excerpt from An Introduction to Pawnee Archeology

The Pawnee have been known to white men since, probably, 1541, and certainly since 1673. They were the most numerous and power ful of the tribes constituting the Caddoan linguistic stock and one of the most important of the entire Plains area. Since the earliest definite historic mention of them they have been resident in Ne braska and the extreme northern portion of Kansas, particularly on the Loup, Platte, and Republican Rivers. As a tribe they were always friendly to the Europeans and later to the Americans, ren dering invaluable aid as scouts in the Indian troubles on the Plains during the middle half of the nineteenth century; and that despite the half-hearted and tardy attentions that too often characterized the Government's relations with them.

The tribe has been variously described by early explorers, mission aries, fur traders, Army officers, and travelers, many of whom left very valuable and worth-while accounts concerning them in their native habitat in the Loup and Platte Valleys. In more recent years, on their reservation in Oklahoma, they have been studied by linguists and ethnologists, though much of this material is still unpublished. Of outstanding note among the available treatises in this field is the work of Dunbar in general ethnology, of Dorsey in mythology, of Grinnell in folk-tales, and of Murie in social and political organiza tion. Archeological remains, surprisingly rich and numerous at many of the old village sites formerly occupied by the tribe, have received but little systematic attention up to the present, save for the excellent beginnings made by a few local collectors. Yet it is this latter, long-neglected field of research which must come to be more and more drawn upon for information regarding this fast-van ishing tribe and its native culture.

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