By: Lindsey Mattison

My work on the Pawnee culture taught me about the way they lived. I learned about what kind of food that they ate, what type of shelter they had, what the climate was like and about their religion I even learned a few interesting facts.

Food

The Pawnee culture mainly ate buffalo and corn, they ate corn a lot because it was sacred they also called it “mother”. Every summer the Pawnee men would go on a buffalo hunt and bring home the tribe’s main source of food.

Shelter

The Pawnee people lived in houses called earth-homes these were domes covered in sod or grass around 2-4 large families could live in one earth-home.

Clothing

The Pawnee wore clothes made out of buffalo skin. In the summer the men would wear a breechcloth and moccasins. The women would wear a dress made out of buffalo skin. In the winter it got much colder, so the men would add a buffalo skin robe and leather pants to their current wardrobe. The women would also add leggings and a buffalo skin robe.

Climate/Location

Another subject that I learned about was the climate and location. The Pawnee tribe lived in what is now Nebraska. The summers there are very hot and then the winters get freezing. Buffalo is abundant because they are one of the very few animals that can survive this kind of climate. Nebraska is a land that is shaped by small streams but these give it its rolling appearance.

Religion

Another thing that I learned about the Pawnee tribe was how their religion was practiced. The Pawnee believed in many gods but the main god Tirawa. Every year the Pawnee would sacrifice a young female captive to this god so that they would have abundant crops in the next growing season. The Pawnee also believed that the stars at night were night gods and that the sun mated with the moon and created the first boy who was carried to earth.

Interesting Facts

The Pawnee men would shave their heads except for a small scalp lock, which they then put paint and grease in to make it stand up like a horn.

There are 2,000 Pawnee people left today.

While hunting buffalo before the Pawnee had horses they would chase the buffalo down hills because they thought that this made them easier to hunt.

In 1856 the Pawnee nation was almost wiped out by smallpox, cholera and Sioux attacks.