In the spring of 1853, Little Robe rode south through Colorado toward the largest Cheyenne village with a heavy heart. The Platte River’s calm stirred nothing in him. For weeks, the Pawnee had raided, abused, and murdered their way through several smaller Cheyenne encampments, and his band’s beloved chief, Alights On A Cloud, had been killed in battle against them. Little Robe had spent the last week traveling across the territory with other messengers, beseeching the Kiowa, the Brûlé Sioux, the Apache, and their always stalwart allies the Arapaho to come and help avenge the attacks.
Now he had come to the great village itself to gain the unified support of the Cheyenne warrior societies. When he turned down Beaver Creek, a tributary of the Platte, his spirits lifted at the sight of the large village already stirring with activity. This was the time of the Medicine Lodge ceremony, the most important ceremony of the year, just before the summer buffalo hunts. But the camp was far busier than normal.
Visitors from smaller bands had been pouring in for days, seeking refuge from the Pawnee onslaught, hoping the sheer numbers would afford them some measure of safety, and perhaps just as importantly, seeking revenge. Little Robe saw a line of people gathered before the largest lodges, each carrying a gift: blankets, food, even horses. Inside those lodges were gathered the vaunted warrior societies of the Cheyenne: the Fox, the Elk, the Shield, and the Dog. Each society served as a mix of military force, police force, and hunting party.
Little Robe went from lodge to lodge, informing the headmen of the nature of his visit and reinforcing the stories of Pawnee atrocities. To each headman he presented a war pipe, and each took four draws from it, signifying the commitment of his society to combat the Pawnee. Each war chief, from the Kit Fox, Shield, Elk, Bowstring, and Dog societies, pledged their allegiance there and then. Within a few days, the allied warriors poured into the camp: Kiowa, Apache, Brûlé Sioux, a few Crow warriors, and the Arapaho, all eager to hunt down the Pawnee and avenge their losses.
But before any warrior could take to the warpath, there was the matter of the medicine ceremony. The ceremony was often misunderstood as a test of endurance. Common among many Northern Plains tribes, it consisted of days of fasting, chanting, and dancing while tethered to a large pole in the lodge by leather cords pierced through the skin of the upper chest. Young men generally volunteered to subject themselves to the torturous rite, which was seen more as a spiritual quest than a public demonstration of pain tolerance.
The Kit Fox soldiers were bound by Cheyenne tradition to lead it, as they were often deferred to, especially among the Northern Cheyenne. The American anthropologist George Bird Grinnell, an observer of Cheyenne life, recorded the ordeal in detail. The afternoon before the sacrifice, the warrior and two older instructors who had been through the ceremony before went out to cut the pole to which he was to be tied. When a suitable young cottonwood was found, they grasped his arms and caused him to move his hands four times toward the tree as if cutting it with an ax, then he cut the pole without further ceremony.
He was made to pick it up from the ground with four preliminary motions, and then four motions before dragging it away. The leaves and branches were left on the pole. That night, a messenger was sent about the camp to borrow two braided rawhide riatas. The next morning, long before daylight, each instructor rubbed his hands down the length of each rope four times.
A coal was taken from the fire, sweetgrass sprinkled on it, and each rope passed four times through the smoke. To one end of each rope were tied two deerskin strings, each seven or eight inches long. Just before daylight, the instructors painted the warrior white with clay over his whole body. They filled a pipe and offered it to him to smoke four times, each time holding it to his mouth without his touching it with his hands.
When they reached the place where the pole stood, the warrior sat down near it while the instructors tied the ropes to the pole. South of the pole, facing southward, was placed a buffalo skull. Then came the piercing. He knelt, sitting back on his heels, resting his hands on his knees, facing the pole.
The instructors knelt at his right side and with charcoal marked upright parallel lines on the skin of his right breast to indicate where the knife should enter and where it should come out. Pinching up the skin, they thrust in the knife and drove it through at the marked place. The left breast was pierced in the same way. Through each slit they passed a small straight stick the length of a finger, and to these skewers they tied the strings of the ropes.
They raised him to his feet and supported him as he walked to the sage-covered path toward the pole, then pulled four times on his breasts to straighten the ropes. He began to walk from the west end of the sage-covered trail to the east end, back and forth until the sun had set. He was constantly trying to break loose, but the skin of his breast would not break; it only stretched. He was allowed to rest four times: in the middle of the morning, at noon, in the middle of the afternoon, and just before sunset, and at each rest he might smoke a pipe.
At sundown the instructors cut through the stretched hide of his breast and took him back to camp, where he entered a sweat lodge. On each of the three following days he took a sweat, and on the fourth day the ceremony was finished. On the final day of the ceremony, two Cheyenne warriors named Wood and Two Thighs, chiefs of the Kit Fox soldiers, spoke of finding the Pawnee. Wood said: “Now this is the last day of the dance.
We are not far from the country of the Pawnees, and it is time for us to choose scouts and send them out to find the Pawnee camp. ” Two Thighs agreed and suggested a young warrior named Mad Wolf. They also summoned Tall Bull, Starving Elk, and Little Wolf, all fellow Cheyenne, as well as Yellow Bear, an Arapaho warrior, and Dirt On The Nose from the Kiowas. All seven warriors were brought to the Kit Fox Soldier Lodge, where a blanket was spread out in front of the door, and they were ordered to sit on it.
The Kit Fox chief addressed them: “Now my friends, you know what the feeling is in this camp, that we want to find the enemy. You men have been chosen for this purpose because we think that you are good men, and we want you to go ahead and to do your best. You must remember you are not going out to count coup, nor to take any scalps or horses, but to find where the enemy is and then to bring back the news to the camp. I intend to go along with you to see that you do as you are told.
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Chief Wood set out ahead and waited on a high ridge above Beaver Creek for the younger warriors. When they arrived, they were, to the chief’s dismay, accompanied by three other young warriors who were not invited but had insisted on tagging along. He acquiesced, as they were too far from camp to send back alone. The group traveled for a day and a half, sleeping little, stopping only once for a quick meal.
In the afternoon of their second day they came upon a pack of wolves feeding on a buffalo carcass. The warriors chased the wolves off to inspect the kill and found embedded deep in the animal’s torso an arrow with markings they recognized as Pawnee. Yellow Bear rode to the top of a nearby hill and returned rapidly with news that he had spotted three Pawnee riders heading south about a mile away. The young warrior, flushed with the desire for combat, began to ride in circles singing his war song and insisting they give chase.
Chief Wood calmly walked up to Yellow Bear’s horse, grabbed the reins, and said: “My friend, we came out here to find the enemy and then to go back and report to the village. We did not come out to take scalps nor to count coup. Let us do what we came to do and nothing else. ” The younger warrior deferred, and the party made haste back to the Cheyenne village.
After another day and a half of hard riding, the party rode into camp with their reconnaissance. They reported that the Pawnee had been spotted. But before the war party could set out, the Cheyenne and their allies had to make right with the spirit world. All the warrior bands were told to send forth representatives in full war regalia, armed and painted for war.
They marched in an extended line through the center of the village, spaced roughly a hundred yards apart. Two elder chiefs ritually cleansed and blessed the tribe’s sacred bundle of arrows, known as the medicine arrows, and a buffalo skull cap known as the medicine hat. These were items of great spiritual power, and their possession came with the weighty responsibility to protect them and uphold the virtues they represented. Once the ceremony was finished, the war paint was washed off and weapons sheathed.
The next day the camp moved down the creek and re-established a new site. While the women worked on the lodges, the chiefs assembled and called out a roster of names for another scouting mission: Tall Bull and War Bonnet from the original reconnaissance squad, and a Dog soldier named Wolf Face, along with three other Dog soldiers. This time there were no ceremonies. The party assembled and left immediately, heading south toward where the Pawnee had previously been seen.
In the early afternoon they came to the place where Tall Bull had originally spotted the Pawnee. Topping the hill, they found a large empty space on the prairie dotted with smoldering campfires, buffalo carcasses, and stray Pawnee dogs. To the southwest they spotted a trail leading over another hill. The six warriors rode to the top of that ridge and crawled toward the crest.
In the valley below, tucked next to a creek, was the large village of the Pawnee. Tall Bull and Wolf Face slipped down into the stream bed and worked their way closer. They saw a massive campfire in the middle of a large circle of Pawnee men, women, and children dancing around it. Off to one side stood a contingent of warriors from another tribe: Shawnee, long-time allies of the Pawnee whose homelands were far to the east.
Tall Bull saw a prime opportunity to pad his warrior resume. He suggested they cover themselves with blankets, disguise themselves as Pawnee, and sneak into the camp, counting coup on any enemy they touched. But one of the other Cheyenne warriors talked him down. “No, we had better not do that,” he said.
“We were not sent here to count coup or to mingle with these people, but to find the camp. Let us go back. ” Discretion won out, and the group returned to the village with word that they had found the Pawnee. The camp erupted into activity.
The men readied their weapons while the women erected tall platforms on which to leave their buffalo meat and sundries out of reach of the wolves. The entire camp moved in the direction of the Pawnee, stripped down to its bare essentials, with men riding in front and women and children kept well behind. After another day and a half of travel, they came within five miles of the Pawnee village. The women and children converged behind a large hill, hidden from sight under the watch of a contingent of guards.
The men rode forward and carried out their medicine ceremony. The sacred hat was placed on the ground atop a bed of stems and sage. An arrow was taken from the sacred bundle and given to Woodleg, who pointed it toward the Pawnee camp and sang the arrow song, stomping his feet in time. The Dog soldiers, Kit Fox soldiers, Bowstring soldiers, Elk soldiers, and the Arapaho and Kiowa allies began to stomp as well.
Woodleg stabbed the arrow in the direction of the Pawnee, stomping harder and harder, and the rest of the warrior force thrust their spears and bows toward the village. When he finished his song, Woodleg passed the arrow back to Rock Forehead, keeper of the medicine arrows. Long Chin, a respected Dog soldier, rode up to the keeper of the medicine hat and accepted the responsibility of wearing it that day, somberly but excitedly. Black Kettle, a legendary Cheyenne chief who would be killed years later in the Sand Creek Massacre, was chosen to tie the medicine arrows to his lance.
Then, as they made one last head count before heading out, they found themselves sickened to realize that Big Head, a young arrogant warrior, had taken off earlier with eight younger warriors, intending to amass their own glory before their comrades could arrive. Breaking formation like this was not only a poor tactical decision; for the Cheyenne it was a metaphysical disaster. The medicine they had so meticulously cultivated for the battle was now broken. But there was no turning back.
Their cover would be blown by the premature raiding party, and if they did not attack now, they might soon find themselves and their families caught and killed by the Pawnee and their allies. The main force charged forward under the navigational direction of Tall Bull and Wolf Face. But when they crested the hill overlooking the valley, the Pawnee village was gone. The party began to search desperately along the creek.
Then they spotted a group of mounted warriors coming straight at them. As the two parties neared each other, the Cheyenne recognized Big Head and his young absconders. Big Head was covered in blood and holding the fresh scalp of a Pawnee, but he wore the face of a young warrior who had bitten off more than he had bargained for. “The camp is right over the hill,” Big Head informed them, then warily added, “Go slowly, for there are many of them.
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The Cheyenne converged and attacked over the hill. To their horror, just as Big Head had warned, the Pawnee and their Shawnee allies had amassed for battle in a defensive formation on the riverbank. The opposing force seemed too numerous to count. Believing they had no other option, the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Kiowa made charge after charge, each with increasing ferocity and decreasing personnel, as the Pawnee picked off the mounted warriors from their defensive positions.
The battle raged for the bulk of the day, with the Cheyenne taking significant losses. About mid-afternoon, they spotted a party of Shawnee flanking their position and taking up positions atop another hill to their right. The Kiowa insisted that they too were allies with the Shawnee, and said they would simply make their way over and recruit them to switch sides. The plan fell through immediately, as the first Kiowa emissary sent forward was summarily shot dead before he even reached the Shawnee lines.
Seeing this, the Cheyenne retreated to the top of another hill further from the Shawnee position. The Shawnee gave chase, only to be driven back. Finally, two Shawnee who ventured too close were ridden down and killed: one lanced by the legendary Kiowa chief Satanta, the other shot dead by a Cheyenne named Good Bear. The Pawnee now arrived to reinforce their allies, and an intense assault was made on the Cheyenne.
In the ensuing bloodshed, seventeen Cheyenne warriors, four Arapaho warriors, and several Kiowa warriors were killed. Seeing their medicine was truly broken and all hope lost, the Cheyenne and their allies made the agonizing decision to retreat, leaving their dead comrades to the mutilations of the Pawnee. They rode hard and fast back to their families. When they arrived, great moans and wails floated up from the prairie as newly widowed women were informed of their husbands’ fates.
But there was no time to grieve. Amidst their tears, the Cheyenne made a desperate hurry to march north, knowing the Pawnee would be out for revenge. It was not until they reached the territory of Beaver Creek, after another day and a half of hard riding, that the events of the previous days could truly sink in. Funeral ceremonies were carried out, and great despair took hold over the camp.
But there was still a harsh winter to prepare for, and with fewer warriors on hand, that summer’s buffalo hunt would be an even more dangerous and arduous endeavor. Life on the plains was a cruel, harsh, and often short affair, for the Cheyenne and for the Pawnee, who despite their victory had lost many warriors of their own. The cycle of viciousness and vengeance was the inescapable reality of life on the plains, and the stories of great tragedies, unspeakable violence, inspiring cooperation, and harrowing endurance were too numerous to mention among the Cheyenne, the Pawnee, or any of their allies.