12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 97 



on at least two occasions, Pawnee Indians have claimed certain of 

 the protohistoric sites as the former dwelling places of their tribe. 

 In 1867 Hayden collected a number of potsherds from "a Pawnee 

 village site on Beaver Creek, Nebraska ....," some of which were 

 subsequently figured by Holmes. ^^ Hayden nowhere records the 

 exact location of' his finds, but Hill has since shown that two very 

 large and almost contiguous protohistoric sites occur on the right 

 bank of Beaver Creek a short distance above its mouth, while 2 or 

 3 miles to the southwest is the Burkett site (fig. i, nos. 16-18). The 

 ceramic and other remains from the three are very similar, and they 

 were undoubtedly inhabited by the same people and at about the 

 same time. In all probability Hayden's specimens which are of Lower 

 Loup Focus type were picked up on one of these locations. It is, 

 therefore, noteworthy that he says: 



No Pawnee Indian now living knows of the time when this village was in- 

 habited. Thirty years ago [i. e., about 1837] an old chief told a missionary that 

 his tribe dwelt there before his birth, but he knew nothing of the use of stone 

 arrowheads, though, he said, his people used them before the production of iron. 



When the "production of iron" here began is not known, but the 

 old chief's story tends to imply habitation of the site in question prior 

 to the middle of the eighteenth century. The claim gains support from 

 another tradition recorded by Bruce in his account of the North 

 brothers and their Pawnee scouts." This is much more explicit and 

 telling. It alludes to a battle which took place long ago between the 

 Pawnees and the Poncas, when 500 of the latter made a treacherous 

 but unsuccessful attack on a Skidi Pawnee village on Shell Creek 

 north of Schuyler. The time of this alleged raid is wholly unknown, 

 but it could not have taken place recently because there is no historic 

 record to indicate that the Skidi, or for that matter any other Pawnee 

 band, dwelt on Shell Creek as late as 1775 or after. Interestingly 

 enough, at the precise locality where the old Skidi village is said 

 to have stood, is the Gray- Wolfe site, one of the first of the Lower 

 Loup Focus to be intensively studied and also one of the two on 

 which the complex as defined is based. (See fig. i, nos. 24 and 25.) 

 Finally, in a myth explaining the formation of the Skidi federation, 

 Murie locates by streams two of the ancient villages. One of these 

 was on the Elkhorn River, the other on Looking Glass Creek." This, 

 if far less definitive, is still suggestive, since the lower course of the 

 latter is sprinkled with not one but several related protohistoric sites. 



"Holmes, 1903, pp. 200-201 and pi. 177; Hayden, 1872, pp. 411-412. 

 " Bruce, 1932, pp. 42-43. 

 " Murie, 1914, p. 554. 



