THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 69 



WOLF PAWNEES. 



108. Le-shaw-loo-lali-le-hoo, the Big Elk ; chief of the band. 



(1833. Plato 141, page 27, vol. 2, Catlin's Eight Years.) 



109. Lo-16ch-to-h6o-lah, the Big Chief; a very celobrated man. 



(1833. No plate.) 



110. La-wah-he-coots-la-shaw-no, the Brave Chief; impressions of hands painted 



on his breast. 



(1833. No plate.) 



111. L'har-e-tar-rtishe, the Ill-natnrcd Man; a great warrior. 

 (1833. No plate.) 



MR. CATLIN'S NOTES ON THE PAWNEE INDIANS. 



The Pawnees are divided into four bands, or families, designated by the names of 

 Grand Pawnees, Tappage Pawnees, Republican Pawnees, and Wolf Pawnees. 



Each of these bands has a chief at its head, which chiefs, with all the nation, ac- 

 knowledge a superior chief at whose voice they all move. 



They (Pawnees) live in four villages, some few miles apart, on the banks of the Platte 

 River, having their allies, the Omahas and Ottoes, so near to them as easily to act in 

 concert in case of invasion from any other tribe; and from the fact that half or more 

 of them are supplied with guns and ammunition, they are able to withstand the 

 assaults of any tribe that may come upon them. 



They (Pawnees) are a very powerful and warlike nation, living on the river 

 Platte, about one hundred miles from its junction with the Missouri (at now near 



), laying claim to, and exercising sway over, the whole country from its 



mouth to the base of the Rocky Mountains. 



The present number of this tribe is ten or twelve thousand ; about one-half the 

 number they had in 1832, when that most appalling disease, the small-pox, was acci- 

 dentally introduced amongst them by the fur traders and whisky sellers, when ten 

 thousand (or more) of them perished in the course of a few months. — Page 27, vol. 2, 

 Catlin's Eight Years. 



Since the above was written I have had the very great pleasure of reading the 

 notes of the honorable Charles A. Murray (who was for several months a guest 

 amongst the Pawnees), and also of being several times a fellow-traveler with him in 

 America ; and at last a debtor to him for his signal kindness and friendship in Lon- 

 don. Mr. Murray's account of the Pawnees, as far as he saw them, is without doubt 

 drawn with great fidelity, and he makes them out a pretty bad set of fellows. As I 

 have before mentioned, there is probably not another tribe on the continent that has 

 been more abused and incensed by the system of trade and money-making than the 

 Pawnees ; and the Hon. Mr. Murray, with his companion, made his way boldly into 

 the heart of their country without guide or interpreter, and I consider at great haz- 

 ard to his life ; and, from all the circumstances, I have been ready to congratulate 

 him on getting out of their country as well as he did. 



I mentioned in a former page the awful destruction of this tribe by the small-pox ; 

 a few years previous to which some one of the fur traders visited a threat upon these 

 people, that if they did not comply with some condition ' he would let the small-pox 

 out of a bottle and destroy the whole of them.' The pestilence has since been intro- 

 duced accidentally amongst them by the traders; and the standing tradition of the 

 tribe now is, that 'the traders opened a bottle and let it out to destroy them.' Un- 

 der such circumstances, from amongst a people who have been impoverished by the 

 system of trade, withomt anybody to protect him, I cannot but congratulate my hon- 

 orable friend for his peaceable retreat, where others before him have been less fortu- 

 nate; and regret at the same time that ho could not have been my companion to 

 some others of the remote tribes.— Note Geo. Catlin to page 25, Ibid. 



