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It is possible that, as among the Aztecs, the victim was regarded as also an embodiment of the God, but this is not certain, the rite having long been disused. Mr. Grinnell got the description from a very old Skidi. There was also a festival of thanks to Ti-ra-wá for corn. During a sacred dance and hymn the corn is held up to the Ruler by a woman. Corn is ritually called 'The Mother, as in Peru.
The six Sioux, when they found that they were pursued, left the mules that they had taken, and ran; and the Pawnees, after chasing them eight or ten miles, caught up with one of them, a brother of the well-known chief Spotted Tail. Baptiste Bahele, a half-breed Skidi, had a very fast horse, and was riding ahead of the other Pawnees, and shooting arrows at the Sioux, who was shooting back at him.
The statement of Herodotus that the Thracians in time of thunderstorms used to shoot arrows at the sky and threaten the god, may point to a recognition of a god of the sky or of storm. +662+. In North America the Algonkin and Maskoki nations and the Skidi Pawnee have deities of the sky, the heavenly bodies, the winds, and fire.
Among these tribes, as among the Skidi Pawnee, the Navahos, and other groups of the Middle West, the control of religion has largely passed into the hands of priests an advance in religious organization. Where ceremonies are conducted by societies, membership in these is often conditioned on the adoption of a personal divine patron by every member.
An example of this occurred many years ago among the Cheyennes. At that time, there was a celebrated chief of the Skidi tribe of the Pawnee Nation whose name was Big Eagle. He was very brave, and the Cheyennes greatly feared him, and it was agreed among them that the man who could count coup on Big Eagle should be made warchief of the Cheyennes.
The first is that of the equestrian Pawnees, who, thirty years ago, were dwelling on the Loup Fork in Nebraska. The buffaloes have since been destroyed, the lands seized, and the Pawnees driven into a 'Reservation, where they are, or lately were, cheated and oppressed in the usual way. They were originally known to Europeans in four hordes, the fourth being the Skidi or Wolf Pawnees.
Ghosts are rarely seen, but auditory hallucinations, as of a voice giving good advice in time of peril, are regarded as the speech of ghosts. The beasts are also friendly, as fellow children with men of Ti-ra-wá. To the Morning Star the Skidi or Wolf Pawnees offered on rare occasions a captive man. The ceremony was not unlike that of the Aztecs, though less cruel.
'Through corn, deer, buffalo, and the sacred bundles, we worship Ti-ra-wá. The flesh was burned in the fire, while prayers were made with great earnestness. In the old Skidi rite the women told the fattened captive what they desired to gain from the Ruler. It is occasionally said that the human sacrifice was made to Ti-ra-wá himself. The sacrificer not only fled, but fasted and mourned.
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