As noted elsewhere, plains tribes can be loosely divided into those who had settled in villages and had farming as their basic economy and the nomadic tribes who roamed across the vast expanse of the plains hunting for game and occasionally harassing their neighbors. This is an over-simplification because most of the "semi-sedentary" farming tribes also went out of their villages every year to hunt buffalo. Both groups used tepees when they were on the hunt, but the nomadic tribes concentrated more on training horses than building earth lodges.

In Nebraska, the Pawnee, the Omaha and the Oto-Missouri were tribes who had discovered how to farm and build lodges out of the soil around them — much like early settlers who discovered how to build sod houses.

Modern Dance Costume — Pawnee, 1927. Photo by Edward S. Curtis. Northwestern University Library, Edward S. Curtis' “The North American Indian: the Photographic Images”, 2001. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ award98/ienhtml/curthome.html

The Pawnee were divided into four autonomous bands, Skidi, Republican, Tappage, and Grand. The Skidi always had their own village. The other bands lived separately or joined together for added protection or as a result of shifts in political alliances. It was estimated there were ten to twelve thousand Pawnee in the early 1800s. They spoke a Caddo language, which is very different than the language of other Nebraska tribes.

Because of their numbers, the Pawnee had little to fear from their enemies, but in the early 1800s their fortunes began to change. Smallpox and other diseases for which they had no immunity reduced their numbers by half. By the 1830s, villages on the Loup River were being raided by the nomadic and better-armed Lakota (Sioux). In the 1850s the Pawnee moved eastward along the Platte River to avoid the attacks, and this put them in contact with the new immigrants.

The Omaha
The Omaha speak the Degiha Siouan language and lived in southeastern South Dakota when first mentioned in historical records in the early 1700s. Near the end of the century they were in Thurston County. They lived in villages of earth lodges; raised corn, beans, and squash; and went on summer and winter buffalo hunts in western Nebraska. At one point the Omaha had a population of nearly 10,000 members.

If you were an Omaha Indian in the 1800s, your dinner may have been corn soup, vegetables and either fresh or dried buffalo. Later, their contacts with fur traders and immigrants introduced them to wheat and metal cookware, and "fry bread" became a popular food. Corn was the main food for most Native Americans.

After Nebraska became a territory, the Omaha settled on a reservation in Thurston County.

The Oto-Missouria
The Missouria were a large tribe, but early contacts with fur traders brought diseases for which they had no immunity. Small pox, whooping cough, and other new illnesses decimated the tribe. By 1800 there may have been no more than one hundred people in the tribe. For protection they joined the Oto who had moved out of Iowa and were living in an earth lodge village on the Platte River not far from its juncture with the Missouri. Like the Pawnee they grew corn, beans, and squash and went on biannual buffalo hunts.

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