Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/44

40 portions of last evening's turkeys, with the addition of bread and coffee, supplied us with supper and breakfast.

After a travel of ten days we arrived at the Republican Pawnee villages, when what was our consternation and dismay to find the place entirely deserted! They had removed to their winter quarters. We were entirely out of provisions, having expected to find abundance at the lodges. We searched diligently for their caches (places where provisions are secured), but failed in discovering any. Our only alternative was to look for game, which, so near to an Indian settlement, we were satisfied must be scarce.

I would break my narrative for a while to afford some explanation in regard to the different bands of the Pawnee tribe; a subject which at the present day is but imperfectly understood by the general reader—the knowledge being confined to those alone, who, by living among them, have learned their language, and hence become acquainted with the nature of their divisional lands.

The reader, perhaps, has remarked, that I related we were on a visit to Republican Pawnee villages. This is a band of the Pawnee tribe of Indians, which is thus divided:


 * The Grand Pawnee Band.
 * The Republican Pawnee Band.
 * The Pawnee Loups or Wolf Pawnees.
 * The Pawnee Pies or Tattooed Pawnees, and
 * The Black Pawnees.

The five bands constitute the entire tribe, Each band is independent and under its own chief, but for mutual defence, or in other cases of urgent necessity, they unite into one body. They occupy an immense extent of country, stretching from beyond the Platte River to the south of the Arkansas, and, at the time I speak of, could raise from thirty thousand to forty thousand warriors. Like all other Indian tribes, they have dwindled away from various causes, the small-pox and war haying carried them off by thousands. Some of the bands have been reduced to one half by this fatal disease (in many instances introduced designedly among them by their civilized brethren); a disease more particularly fatal to the Indians from their entire ignorance of any suitable remedy. Their invariable