How come the Pawnee are frequently cast as the bad guys? The Pawnee were suck ups to the whites in Little Big Man, and I seem to recall they we cast in a bad light in *Old Yeller *too. Others?
I enjoy history, and historical novels that are well researched. I highly recommend any books by Douglas C. Jones (Civil War, the west, Spanish-American War). Jones had a master’s degree in history.
From what I recall, the Crows were the most contentious of the plains Indians, but the Apaches could not get along with anyone.
The Pawnee, in Western Nebraska, sat astride the Overland Trail, and raided south into Kansas where they interdicted the Santa Fe Trail. They were the first significant tribe of Trans-Missouri hostile Indians the Euro-Americans had to deal with. They were also in pretty constant conflict with the expansionist Sioux who coveted the monopoly on being the middle men for trade with the western tribes. Early on the Pawnee figured out that there was more profit in siding with the Whites and brokering the Western Trade than there was in fighting a losing battle to stem White expansion onto the Great Plains. They got a bad press in the Oregon Trail literature and the Dakota/Lakota/Sioux weren’t too hot on them either, they being a hereditary enemy (along with every one else who got in the way of that bunch of gangsters, e.g., the Ree, the Crow, the Chipawah, the Sauk and Fox and anyone else who could be bullied into cooperation).
Scalping was a widespread ancient practise. Europeans have been scalping people since 6000 BC, at least.
I only watched DWW once, and I could swear there was a scene where Dunbar, after he became friends with the Sioux, came upon them partying wildly and he saw in their camp a settlers’ wagon containing the bloody butchered corpses of the settlers. He was very upset, and wouldn’t associate with the Sioux that night. Am I misremembering this? If that scene was in there, then the movie was not altogether on the side of the “noble red man” myth.
Since he’s most famous for crying, shouldn’t he have been called "Rusty Eyes?’’
I’ll go away now.
To expand on this a bit, it is to some extent an artifact of revisionist history, still tainted with a little of the old slow-dying notions of the “noble savage.” Tribes like the Lakota/Dakota, Cheyenne, Apache and Comanche have tended to be romanticized in retrospect for their doomed resistance. The Pawnee, who after some initial conflict decided to ally with the far more powerful Americans are looked down on a bit for being accomodationists. It’s nonsense of course - the Pawnee had damn good reason for the choices they made, as did their opponents. But it doesn’t read as well in retrospect, though somehow the Pawnee have gotten a worse rap than similarly U.S. friendly tribes like the Shoshone and the Absaroke (Crow ).
However I might argue with Spavined Gelding that it is perhaps a might bit unfair to refer to the Lakota as any more expansionist than their nomadic neighbors. It was the Chippewa who actually drove them westward onto the plains in part via the early acquistion of firearms. If the Lakota bullied certain other tribes it is only because they had the numerical strength to do so, not that they were any more aggressive than their opponents. None of the nomadic plains tribes appear to have been angels.
You will get no argument from me on this proposition. It is not that the Sioux were the only gangsters on the northern plains. They were simply the most successful because the most numerous. Gangsters none the less. It can be argued with some persuasiveness that the Euro-Americans were more successful gangsters than the Sioux.
O, dear God! PLEASE don’t get us into ANOTHER Chippewa vs Lakota fight! There haven’t been so many in one place since the 1850s! 
Wounded Knee is part of Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. It is the poorest area in the United States. Many of you have seen me post about it before. As you read this, many of the houses they live in don’t have any source of heat.
About the film: The little girl who played Stands With A Fist as a child (as she was being abducted) is Kevin Costner’s daughter.
Part of the reason that the American Indians were portrayed as the “good guys” is that in almost all Westerns previous to this one, they were portrayed as total savages. There was at least some attempt to balance things out. The hero of the story was a white guy.
Omegaman, your post is absolutely sterling! Print it out, frame it and don’t ever forget that those words came from the heart of you.
Regarding Little Big Man (the book, not the movie) I seem to recall that the Crow were portrayed as “suck ups” to the whites; the only specific reference to the Pawnee that I can remember was that Little Big Man expressed a dislike for their hair style. But I’m going on memory and that ain’t a good thing.
Didn’t read the book, so the only reference I have is this scene from the movie:
Pawnee brave: "Little White Man fool poor Pawnee. Big fooling. You want to eat? "
Jack Crabbe (voiceover): Pawnees was always sucking up to whites.
Pawnee brave: "Little White Man not mad, huh? See? Pawnee friend. Fix this bad Indian for Little White Man. "
Jack Crabbe (voiceover): I always felt kind of bad about that poor Pawnee. I didn’t mean to kill him. I just meant to distract him.
After having taken a look at the book, what I said in post #31 is not correct; Little Big Man participated in a fight that was Pawnee against Cheyenne; he was searching for his stolen white wife, Olga. He ended up with a Cheyenne wife as a result of that fight.
I’m holding the book in my left hand and typing this with my right. Damn slow, too. Anyway, the scene you describe is at least partly in the book; the movie embellished it, I suppose. But, per the book, the Indian in question was a Crow and not a Pawnee. Why Hollywood changed the Crow to a Pawnee I don’t know. Actually, the first line you quote from the movie is nearly word for word from the book, except the Pawnee brave was, in the book, a Crow. The rest of the lines from the movie don’t appear in the book, although Little Big Man did kill the Crow. In fact, the killing led directly to his being given the name of Little Big Man.