When it comes to death beliefs and
rituals, the first adjective that comes to mind when describing the Pawnee is
expressive. The Pawnee place a high value on expressing their ideas when it
comes to many aspects of their lives, even the end result of life, which is
death.
Expression plays a key role when the
Pawnee describe their common beliefs. The Pawnee believe that death is very
hostile and that it results from such strange events as witchcraft or sorcery.
Social status also is an important part of the common death beliefs of the
Pawnee. A deceased person who holds a higher status in the Pawnee society
ultimately has a more elaborate burial. Such people are usually painted and
dressed up before placed to rest. After death, it is believed that the soul of
the deceased entered heaven and became a star (Countries and their Cultures,
2017).
One of the two most common death rituals
of the Pawnee tribe was the Morning Star Ceremony. This ritual was performed by
the Skidi Pawnee. The Morning Star Ceremony was a human sacrifice of a young
girl, who was captured from opposing tribes by the Pawnee men. The girl
represented the female Evening Star. The ritual was connected to the creation
of the Pawnee people, in which the male Morning Star mated with the female
Evening Star. It was a 5 day ceremony, with the death occurring on the final
day. On the final day, the sacrifice of the girl would be made. The beginning of
the ceremony was timed so that it began when the Morning Star broke the horizon
(Thurman, 1983). The girl would be raised on a scaffold for the crowd to see.
The scaffold would resist any attempts of escape that the girl might take. Men
would take off the girl’s clothes and brand her in the groin and arm pits
(Thurman, 1983). Next, the girl would be beaten with clubs. The girls chest was
cut open after that, the girl would be shot through the heart with a sacred bow
and arrow while simultaneously getting struck in the head with a club. After
the girl had passed, the Pawnee sought to fulfill the creation of their people.
The men would act as the Morning Star and shoot arrows into the body of the
girl. By doing so, this symbolized the action of the male Morning Star mating
with the female Evening Star, and life among the Pawnee was reborn.
The other common death ritual seen among
the Pawnee tribes was the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance was a movement in which
the Pawnee envisioned the return of the deceased from the spirit world (Lesser, 1933). The
Pawnee believed that the Ghost Dance enabled the dead to communicate with the
living. The dead could achieve this by obtaining certain visions that the
living brought about during the dance (Lesser, 1933). The Pawnee took this ritual very serious,
as they would dress up in elaborate clothing, including headdresses that they
would make out of feathers. They would also paint designs on their faces and
other parts of the body.
Sources
Countries and their Cultures. (2017). Pawnee-Religion and expressive culture. Retrieved February 8, 2017, from http://www.everyculture.com/North-America/Pawnee-Religion-and-Expressive-Culture.html
Thurman, M. D. (1983). The timing of the Skidi-Pawnee Morning Star Sacrifice. Ethnohistory, 30 (3), 155-163.
Lesser, A. (1933). Cultural significance of the ghost dance (pp. 108-115). American Anthropological Association.
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