Such a diverse little spot in the middle of nowhere on Smoky Valley Ranch: General Custer once camped nearby, the Pawnee Indians established a small village here, a buffalo kill site is very close, and this was the site of a trail despatch where travelers could stop for food, shelter, and to swap out horses. Imagine what this cottonwood has seen in its lifetime - if only it could speak! ————————————————— #history #generalcuster #pawneeindians #buffalo #buffalokillsite #despatch #food #shelter #swaphorses #smokyvalleyranch #cottonwood #cottnwoodtree #easterncottonwood #nature #iftreescouldtalk https://www.instagram.com/p/B6NwOpggpxk/?igshid=1xpzai82vkj68
Officially a granddad today .. welcome to the world #JaZiyahBattle #BattleLegacy #BattlePride #pawneeindians https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Be-YUB_Jn/?igshid=1nt4womrdvdp1
Don't wear jewelry to much nowadays but this is by far my favorite because it has the deepest meaning .. #BattleBabies #PawneeIndians #ProudDadMoment .. #RandomThoughtsByKing239 #RandomThoughtsByMr239
In the more recent Western movies that feature Pawnee warriors, like Dances With Wolves, they over-exaggerate the large roach headdress look. While the roach was largely famous for being worn by Pawnee warriors, they weren't worn as much as Hollywood's interpretation. Movies nowadays lead you to believe that pretty much every other warrior wore a large lengthy roach. Many of them did, but more did not. The pics above show what the majority of them actually looked like. Even the ones who wore roaches, usually wore ones that were pretty small or short. If you encountered a Pawnee warrior during their hay day, they would most likely only have a lone-scalplock mohawk. Or if they wore a roach, it would look much like the one in the upper left corner picture.
The older Western movies got it wrong also. Back then they didn't care much for authenticity when it came to any culture outside of White people and Black people. Hollywood almost seemed to hate Natives, so much so that they wouldn't even let real Natives play the roles. Of course this extends into how they made the Indians look in the movies too. They gave all Natives a very generic look. They made all tribes from the Southwest look like Apache and Plains tribes look like Sioux or Cheyenne. Pawnee are famous for their scalplock look, but the old movies never even tried to touch on that authenticity. Pretty sad.
Issue #2: The evil Indians
Of course every movie with conflict needs a bad guy. Traditionally in a movie, you have a good group and a bad group. Dances With Wolves was a movie that had a good group (Sioux) and two bad groups (White man and Pawnee). They kind of needed to do that because that's how it really was back then. The Natives didn't exactly unify together and battle the White man as a whole, they were still warring amongst themselves while dealing with the Whites at the same time. Dances had it quite backwards though. They made the Pawnee out to be blood-thirsty hostile savages who wanted to war with everyone. Historically, it was the Sioux themselves who were very blood-thirsty and hostile towards the Pawnee. If you don't believe me, read up on a famous massacre called Massacre Canyon. It's the little details I read about it that were the most savage. After the success of Dances, almost any movie after that which featured Pawnee, portrayed them as the bad guy also. I guess because they were a nation who never went to war with the US and actually sided with the US Army when fighting against their rivals, it made them fair game with movies.
