American Indian Culture and Research Journal

Interpreting Pawnee Star Lore: Science or Myth? Douglas R. Parks When Stars Came Down to Earth: Cosmology of the Skidi Pawnee Indians of North America by Vol Del Chamberlain. Los Altos, California: Ballena Press, 1982. 270 pp. $17.95 Paperback. The Pawnee were formerly a populous, semi-sedentary people, organized into small autonomous groups, who lived in permanent earth lodge villages along watercourses in east central Nebraska. They-and particularly one division, the Skiri-are noted among North American Indian groups for their elaborate ritualism and poetic interpretations of the heavens and the earth. Perhaps no other native people on this continent attached such an importance to the stars, who were for them a pantheon in the sky. Their cosmogony, which appears to be conceptually unique, told of celestial origins. Mankind was born of the unions of celestial gods: the first female was the child of Morning Star and Evening Star; the first male, the child of Sun and Moon. Each Skiri village traced its origin and its ritual to a particular star that, together with other stars, continued to control human affairs. Every individual, too, was related to a particular star. At one's birth, one star shone brighter than all others and would become known later in life when one fell ill, and a doctor who had power from an animal directly related to the patient's star was discovered and was able to treat the patient successfully. The fundamental importance of stars to the Skiri was immediately apparent to outside observers and recorders of their culture. The stars pervaded Skiri intellectual life and its physical manifestations ranged from the spectacular Morning Star ritual sacrifice to the subtle artistic representation of the Morning Star on cradle boards.