Republican Pawnee Village

For the Kitkehahki, the Republican band of the Pawnee, the hill downstream was holy ground. George Bird Grinnell, writing from Pawnee accounts in 1893, listed five places where the nahu'rac, animals given miraculous powers by Ti-ra'-wa, met in council. Pa-hûr', "hill that points the way," was the fifth: a flinty rock with a great hole in its side. Grinnell placed it in Kansas; it stands on the Nebraska side, southeast of town. By 1973 Pahuk, near Fremont, was the only one of the five not destroyed or badly damaged.

What the plaque says

Republican Pawnee Village Near here was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe which may have been occupied as early as 1777. On September 25, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike visited the village with a small party of soldiers. He was greeted by Chief Characterish and 300 horsemen. The American party found that the village had been recently visited by a large Spanish expedition from Santa Fe. Pike set up camp with rifle pits on the north bank of the river opposite the village. He persuaded the Pawnee to lower a Spanish flag and raise the American flag. After holding peace conferences between the Osage, Kansa and Pawnee, Pike served notice the land was now a part of the United States and the Spanish would be forbidden in the area. On October 7th, the American party defied the warnings of the Pawnee not to travel toward the Spanish settlements. He and his party were captured by the Spanish but were eventually released. A short distance downstream from the village site is one of the five "sacred places" of the Pawnee. It is known as Pa-hūr' to the Pawnee or "hill that points the way" and as Guide Rock to the whites. Guide Rock Lions Club- Community Betterment Committee Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• National Willa Cather Center — 10 mi
  The restored Moon Block on Red Cloud's Webster Street, home of the Willa Cather Foundation, with the town she grew up in and wrote about laid out around it.
• Willa Cather Memorial Prairie — 11 mi
  Six hundred and twelve acres of never-plowed mixed-grass prairie south of Red Cloud, once Kitkehahki Pawnee country, named for the writer who said the grass was the country.

More markers nearby

• Cowles Consolidated School — 9.2 mi
• Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 1904-1952 — 9.3 mi
• Red Cloud, 1871-1971 — 10 mi
• Cather Childhood Home — 10 mi