Editing Pawnee mythology (section)

== Morning Star ceremony ==
{{for|the Aboriginal Australian (Yolngu) ceremony of the same name|Barnumbirr#The Morning Star Ceremony}}
{{see|Child sacrifice in pre-Columbian cultures}}
[[File:Pawnee Sacrifice.jpg|thumb|400px|Photograph of a miniature diorama's depiction of the ceremony, published in 1922 on behalf of the [[Field Museum of Natural History]], [[Chicago]].]]

The Morning Star ceremony was a religious ceremony occasionally involving a ritual [[human sacrifice]] of a young girl, performed only by a single village (Village Across a Hill)<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|32}} of the [[Skidi]] band of the Pawnee.  It was connected to the Pawnee creation narrative, in which the mating of the male Morning Star with the female Evening Star created the first human being, a girl.
 
The Skidi Pawnee practiced the Morning Star ritual regularly, although seemingly not annually,<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|14}} through the 1810s. In June 1818, the ''Missouri Gazette'' reported a sacrifice "some time ago". The newborn of a captive [[Comanche]] woman was sacrificed after the woman herself had managed to escape on a stolen horse.<ref name=Thurman1983>Thurman, Melburn D.: "The Timing of the Skidi-Pawnee Morning Star Sacrafice.&#91;sic&#93;" ''Ethnohistory'', Vol. 30 (1983), No. 3, pp. 155-163.</ref>{{rp|159}} However, two members of the [[Long Expedition]] in 1820 believed that the young Pawnee man [[Petalesharo]] had rescued the Comanche girl and urged an end to the Morning Star ritual. Edwin James gave the year for this action as 1817, while [[John R. Bell (military officer)|John R. Bell]] placed it around 1815.<ref name=Thurman1983/>{{rp|159}}

U.S. [[Indian agents]] sought to convince chiefs to suppress the ritual,<ref name=Jones1969>Jones, Dorothy V.: "John Dougherty and the Pawnee Rite of Human Sacrifice: April, 1827." ''Missouri Historical Review'', Vol. 63 (1969), pp. 293-316.</ref>{{rp|294}} and major leaders, such as Knife Chief and his relative Petalesharo or Man Chief,<ref name=Jones1969/>{{rp|294–295}} worked to change the practices objected to by the increasing number of American settlers on the Plains. An additional aim of the agents could have been to protect the [[fur trade]] by reducing intertribal animosity.<ref name=Thurman1970a>Thurman, Melburn D.: "The Skidi Pawnee Morning Star Sacrifice of 1827." ''Nebraska History''. 1970, pp. 268-280.</ref>{{rp|276}}<ref name=Thurman1983/>{{rp|161}}

The custom came to the wider attention of the public in the Eastern United States in 1820 due to reports of a young Pawnee warrior, Man Chief, who risked his life to rescue a Comanche girl from the sacrificial scaffold in defiance of the Skidi Pawnee priesthood.<ref>Weltfish, p. 9</ref> Indian Agent John Dougherty and some influential Pawnees tried without luck to save the life of a [[Cheyenne]] girl before mid-April&nbsp;1827.<ref name=Jones1969/> The last known sacrifice was of Haxti, a 14-year-old [[Oglala Lakota]] girl on April 22, 1838.<ref>[[George Hyde (historian)|Hyde, George]]. ''The Pawnee Indians''. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1974. {{ISBN|0-8061-2094-0}}
 pp. 19–359</ref> (A later stated 1833 sacrifice was confused with the one in April&nbsp;1827).<ref name=Thurman1970b>Thurman, Melbrun D.: "A Case of Historical Mythology: The Skidi Pawnee Morning Star Sacrifice of 1833." ''Plains Anthropologist''. Vol. 50 (1970), pp. 309-311.</ref>

===The identity of the Morning Star===
The identity of the Morning Star is not clear. "The earliest accounts specified [[Venus]] as Morning Star, while most ethnographers favored [[Mars]]", given it was said to be red.<ref name=Thurman1983/>{{rp|155}} [[Jupiter]] is also a candidate.<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|41}}

During the known 1827 and 1838 ceremonies, calculations show that Venus rose in the morning sky.<ref name=Thurman1983/>{{rp|158}}

===Human sacrifice===
{{Mythology}}
{{more citations needed|section|date=January 2018}}
The ceremony was performed  in spring, in years when "[[Mars]] was [[wikt:Special:Search/morning star|morning star]]" (see above: The identity of the Morning Star), but usually not as an actual [[human sacrifice]], but merely as a symbolic ceremony. However, one source states, "Several or more years frequently elapsed between occurrences of the Morning Star Ceremony".<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|14}} An actual human sacrifice would be performed only when a man of the village dreamed that the Morning Star had come to him and told him to perform the proper ceremony.  He would then  consult with the keeper of the Morning Star [[sacred bundle|bundle]], receiving from him a warrior costume. At the first instruction, both the visionary and the [[priest]] would cry, knowing that the mission put upon them by the Morning Star was wrong to carry out.<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|115}} The man, aided by volunteers, then had to carry out an attack on an enemy village and capture a girl of suitable age.<ref>"The sacrifice was performed only in years when Mars was morning star and usually originated in a dream in which the Morning Star appeared to some man and directed him to capture a suitable victim.  The dreamer went to the keeper of the Morning Star bundle and received from him the warrior's costume kept in it.  He then set out, accompanied by volunteers, and made a night attack upon an enemy village.  As soon as a girl of suitable age was captured the attack ceased and the party returned.  The girl was dedicated to the Morning Star at the moment of her capture and was given into the care of the leader of the party who, on its return, turned her over to the chief of the Morning Star." Ralph Linton, "The origin of the Pawnee Morning Star Sacrifice", ''American Anthropologist''.(New Series) Vol 28, No 3 (July 1926), pp 457–466</ref>

Returning to the village, the captured girl would be handed over to the servant (priest) of the Morning Star. The people in contact with the girl treated her with respect, but kept her isolated from the rest of the tribe.  When it was time for the spring sacrifice, she was [[Ritual purification|ritually cleansed]].  A five-day ceremony then began with the priest singing songs describing the advancing stages in the rite, and the girl was symbolically transformed from human to celestial form, as the ritual representation of the Evening Star. On the final day of the ceremony, a procession of men, boys and male infants carried by their mothers accompanied the girl outside the village to a [[gallows|scaffold]].<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|124}} The scaffold was made of sacred woods and skins, representing "Evening Star's garden in the west, the source of all animal and plant life."<ref>Linton, 1926, p. 458</ref>

Anthropologist [[Ralph Linton]] reported that evidence indicated the practice "was carried out somewhat unwillingly" by Pawnee religious leaders, who regarded it as an obligation or duty and took no pleasure from the practice.<ref>Linton (1926), p 22</ref> The priests removed her clothing and she was left alone on the scaffold at the moment of the rising of the Morning Star (Mars). Symbolizing the Morning Star and his [[fireball (meteor)|fireball]]s, two men would come from the east and touch flaming branches to her armpits and groin. She would then be touched with [[gunstock war club|war clubs]] by four other men.  A sacred arrow from the Skull bundle was shot through her heart by the man who captured her while simultaneously another man struck her over the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The dead girl's chest would then be cut open by the priest with a flint knife while her captor caught her blood on dried meat. ("A very small cut is made ... The heart is not exposed or removed.")<ref name=MurieI/>{{rp|123}} All male members of the tribe would then press forward and shoot arrows into the dead body, then circle the scaffold four times and disperse.<ref>{{cite book|quote="The procession was timed so that she would be left alone on the scaffold at the moment the morning star rose.  When the morning star appeared, two men came from the east with flaming brands and touched her lightly in the arm pits and groins.  Four other men then touched her with war clubs.  The man who had captured her then ran forward with the bow from the Skull bundle and a sacred arrow and shot her through the heart while another man struck her on the head with the war club from the Morning Star bundle. The officiating priest then opened her breast with a flint knife and smeared his face with the blood while her captor caught the falling blood on dried meat.  All the male members of the tribe then pressed forward and shot arrows into the body.  They then circled the scaffold four times and dispersed." |last=Linton|year=1926|page=459|title=The origin of the Pawnee Morning Star Sacrifice|work=American Anthropologist.|volume=28|number=3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|quote=To fulfill the creation of life, the men of the village would take on the role of the Morning Star, which is why two men would come from the east with flaming brands, representing the sun.  The men  acted out the violence which had allowed the Morning Star to mate with the Evening Star (by breaking her vaginal teeth) in their creation story, with a "meteor stone." |last=Weltfish|title=The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture|url=https://archive.org/details/lostuniversewith00welt |url-access=registration |year=1965|page=[https://archive.org/details/lostuniversewith00welt/page/82 82]|publisher=New York, Basic Books }}</ref>

By shooting arrows into her body, the village men, as embodiments of Morning Star, were symbolically mating with her. Her blood would drip down from the scaffolding and onto the ground which had been made to represent the Evening Star's garden of all plant and animal life.  They took her body and laid the girl face down on the prairie, where her blood would enter the earth and fertilize the ground. The spirit of the Evening Star was understood to be released and the ceremony supposedly ensured the success of the crops, the continuation of all life on the Plains, and the perpetuation of the Universe.