The Skidi is one of four bands of Pawnee people, a central Plains tribe.[ They lived on the Central Plains of Nebraska and Kansas for most of the millennium prior to European contact.][
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According to oral history, the Skidi were associated with the Arikara and the Wichita people[ before the Arikara moved northward. They did not join the other, southern bands of Pawnee until the mid-18th century.][ The Skidi language was less related to the other Pawnee languages than the other three tribes' languages were related to each other. In the 18th century, the Skidi first lived on the Loup River in Nebraska.
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Today, the Skidi Pawnee are enrolled in the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma.["Preamble." Constitution of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. Revised 14 June 2008.]
Names
The Skidi have also been known as the Wolf Pawnee,[ French Loup Pawnee, Panismaha, or Panimaha, or Skiri.
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History
The Skidi's main settlements were along the Platte River. Some early European explorers referred to this waterway as the Panimaha River, since this was before some of the Skidi migrated south.
18th century
In the early 18th century, the Panishmaha lived west of the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska. A locates les Panimaha in the vicinity of the Riv. des Panis (Platte River) with other Pawnee villages ( les Panis), perhaps on the Loup River,[John, Storms Brewed, p. 220] In about 1752 they made peace with the Comanches ( les Padoucas), Wichitas and the main Pawnee groups.
By the 1770s, the Panishmaha, a group of the Skidi had broken off and moved towards Texas, where they allied with the Taovayas, the Tonkawa, Yojuanes, and other Texas tribes. This group was referred to as the Panimaha.
The Skidi are notable for their performance of a type of human sacrifice, known as the Morning Star ceremony, recorded for the last time in 1838.[Ralph Linton, The sacrifice to the morning star by the Skidi Pawnee, Chicago (1922).]
19th century
The Panishmaha, a group within the Skidi band, moved from what is now Nebraska to the Texas-Arkansas border regions where they lived with the Taovayas. It appears that this group was also the Pannis designated in a village along the Sulphur Creek in northeast Texas in a 19th-century Spanish map.[ Access Genealogy article on the Skidis]
Notable Skidi
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James Rolfe Murie (1862–1921), anthropologist, ethnographer
See also
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Panis (slaves of First Nation descent)
External links
Notes
